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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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Chapter 27
This creature, nearly five meters long and resembling a giant worm, was the Giant Ground Worm.
It spent most of its time underground, making it difficult to locate. And even when it surfaced, its thick hide—measuring up to 70 centimeters—was so durable that most attacks couldn’t even scratch it. Its defense was monstrous.
Its survival instincts were just as ridiculous. If it took any serious damage in battle, it would flee underground without hesitation. Countless heroes had struggled only to let it escape in the end.
To make things worse, it dropped mana stones only rarely, even compared to other monsters in its class. And the materials harvested from its corpse weren’t particularly valuable either. So heroes didn’t exactly line up to fight Giant Ground Worms.
But to Dojun, this thing was anything but difficult.
Despite its size, the Giant Ground Worm moved slowly.
Sure, it seemed fast when it burst out of the ground—but if you had even halfway decent reflexes, dodging it wasn’t hard. The warning signs were obvious.
Rrrrrrrrrrkkk—!
The ground beneath Dojun’s feet began to rumble.
Dojun moved instantly, sidestepping to the right.
KUKWAGAGAGA!
The worm erupted from the ground, just where he’d been standing.
There were about three seconds between the vibration and the attack.
If your senses were dull—or your body slow—you’d end up swallowed whole by those gaping jaws.
To a civilian, three seconds might seem short, but to a hero? That was more than enough. Rarely did any hero die from this worm’s first ambush.
Having failed its surprise attack, the Giant Ground Worm opened its massive jaws wide—
Squirm, Squirm, Squirm, Squirm, Squirm.
Five tendrils, slimy and writhing, slithered out of its mouth. They could extend up to 10 meters.
These tendrils were the worm’s real weapons. Unlike its bulky body, they were fast, sharp, and destructive.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Though they missed Dojun and only struck the bare ground, the impact was vicious.
Each hit gouged deep craters into the earth—like being struck with a massive warhammer or spear.
There were even heroes who’d tried to block them head-on, only to have both shield and body smashed into grotesque shapes.
But dodging alone wouldn’t bring it down. Dojun knew that well.
He channeled mana into his fingertips.
A surge of intense, crimson mana glowed and took shape.
A crimson longsword.
’As expected... it burns through too much mana.’
Creating a weapon with raw mana consumed more than twice as much as forming sword aura through a physical sword.
It was incredibly inefficient—wasteful, really.
Even back in his former, ruined world, Dojun had almost never resorted to this technique, despite having access to vastly more mana than he did now.
’Still, I’m not about to spend billions on a sword I can barely swing a few times.’
The reason he didn’t buy weapons?
Even swords that cost hundreds of millions—no, billions—couldn’t absorb mana properly. They shattered after just a few monster kills.
But if he didn’t use mana at all, his attacks lacked the power he needed.
So whether he liked it or not, Dojun fought with his bare hands—and occasionally, mana-forged weapons.
Earth’s scientific progress was impressive.
Cars, airplanes—far more advanced than anything from his destroyed world.
Weapons, too, had evolved—at least for fighting humans.
Against monsters? Practically useless.
Guns especially had become almost laughably ineffective.
Sure, they were dangerous to people, but against mana-infused creatures, they might as well have been toys.
Even missiles boasted great firepower—but launching one to kill a single monster was like burning your whole house down to get rid of a flea. Not exactly efficient.
And even missiles didn’t work on all monsters.
Just look at the Mekkasian incident in the UK. Earth’s entire arsenal had failed, plunging London into terror.
Put simply—Earth’s weapons only posed a threat to humans.
They were built for mass destruction, not mana-wielding lifeforms.
Monsters were completely different beasts—especially ones that used mana.
As a result, traditional bladed weapons had been abandoned. No one had bothered to innovate, and even the most expensive swords were almost useless in real combat.
SHHRRRRK!
Dojun’s mana-forged sword sliced clean through the worm’s tendrils.
The intense flame energy seared the severed ends, burning them shut—making regeneration impossible.
The creature recoiled.
Its massive body writhed in pain, fury radiating from every twitch.
Enraged, the Giant Ground Worm’s torso pulsed and heaved—then unleashed a torrent of dark blue fluid from its jaws.
Not a stream—droplets.
Its final, most lethal attack.
Corrosive acid.
It could melt human flesh in seconds.
Countless heroes had lost their lives to it—deadly didn’t even begin to describe it.
But even then, Dojun remained calm.
He swung his mana sword through the air—once, twice, three times.
A curtain of flame erupted before him.
The acid never even touched him.
It hit the fiery barrier—and evaporated instantly.
When nothing else worked against Dojun, the Giant Ground Worm resorted to its final option.
“Not a chance.”
Without even sparing it a glance, Dojun hurled the mana blade in his hand at the creature as it tried to retreat back into the ground.
The sword, flying fast, began to shift midair—its form stretching and warping until it transformed into a spear that pierced straight through the Giant Ground Worm’s body in a perfect line.
A tunnel large enough for a grown man to walk through had been punched clean through the monster's massive torso. The beast died instantly.
From that point on, every time a surviving Worm surfaced from underground, Dojun impaled it the same way—driving gaping holes through their bodies without mercy.
After eliminating around a hundred of the ones that had initially been hiding below and then finishing off any stragglers, Dojun finally came to a stop in front of a reed field that marked the path toward the core of the Rift.
A vast, open plain led to it—the Reed Forest.
Standing tall at over two meters, the reeds concealed beings far more dangerous than the Giant Ground Worms.
Lamineotes.
Only about 30 centimeters in length, these monsters—nicknamed Assassins of the Reed Forest—looked deceptively like toads.
Many heroes had underestimated them for their small size, only to meet a swift and meaningless death.
Each Lamineote carried 37 types of deadly venom within its body, and when it puffed itself up, it would unleash a deadly barrage of toxic spines in all directions. Just a graze meant instant death.
At least you could dodge a Worm. But these things? With thousands of them scattered across a 3-kilometer stretch of dense reeds, evading them was damn near impossible.
Especially because they swarmed. Dozens could latch onto a single target in an instant. If you got surrounded—even once—it was game over.
Stopping just short of entering the forest, Dojun immediately channeled his mana.
Starting from deep within his core, the mana surged outward, flaring into a massive, roaring blaze that enveloped him in a dome-shaped shield of flame.
Honestly, Lamineotes were the kind of monsters you wanted to avoid if you could. Dojun felt the same way as every other hero.
Tiny, silent, perfectly camouflaged, they didn’t even breathe loud enough to be heard. Yet they could launch venomous quills from 50 meters away without hesitation.
Worse, they lived in massive colonies. Wander into their territory, even by mistake, and things could go south fast.
Back in the ruined world, there hadn’t been any reliable way to detoxify Lamineote venom either. It was just easier and smarter to avoid them altogether.
“Karsel, even you have monsters you steer clear of?”
“It’s not fear. It’s just... a hassle.”
“Pfft! Same thing! Lamineotes are nothing. Just light ‘em up and be done with it!”
Dojun recalled Kusak, the greatest fire mage on the continent, who once summoned a massive flame dragon and roasted thousands of Lamineotes without breaking a sweat.
Grinning at the memory, Dojun took his first step into the reed forest.
Rrrrrrrrkkk! Rrrrk! Rrrrk!
Rrk! Rrrrk! Rk! Rk!
As the unfamiliar intruder stepped into their territory, thousands of Lamineotes hidden in the reed forest began to let out a cacophony of shrill cries.
With one monster’s cry triggering a chain reaction among the rest, the overwhelming noise made Dojun furrowed his brow.
The entire forest of reeds shook as if stirred by a strong wind, thousands of Lamineotes beginning to move.
All of them were now focused on one target—a single intruder: Dojun.
Whoooosh!
One Lamineote lunged at Dojun’s flaming mana shield, only to be instantly engulfed in flames.
Seeing this, dozens of Lamineotes that had been about to charge froze in place.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrk!
Letting out a hoarse, guttural cry, the Lamineote’s swollen body rapidly expanded—to the point it seemed like it might burst. Suddenly, it leapt into the air with a twang!
And then—
Papapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapapap!
Over a hundred poison needles, each less than a centimeter long, scattered in all directions.
Though they were all blocked by Dojun’s mana shield, the sheer visual alone was enough to invoke terror.
What made it worse—the poison needle barrage didn’t stop with one. Hundreds more Lamineotes began to follow suit.
Twang!—Papapapapapapapapapapapapapap!
Thoom!—Papapapapapapapapapapapapapap!
Every time dozens—sometimes over a hundred—of Lamineotes jumped, another rain of needles would fill the sky, to the point that Dojun’s field of vision was completely obscured.
The most shocking part? The needles fired at other Lamineotes weren’t harmful—they were absorbed harmlessly.
Some even licked poison needles off the ground with their sticky tongues and reused them—recycling the same attacks over and over.
It was, quite literally, an infinite loop.
Dojun wanted to burst every last one of them out of the air, but it would take too much time.
Besides, he had a different purpose for entering the rift zone today—so he focused on breaking through the reed forest quickly.
Once he made it through the 3-kilometer stretch of reeds, the thousands of Lamineotes left behind cried out with frustration at the intruder they had let slip away.
Dojun shook his head at the disgusting noise and turned toward his final destination.
A low ridge.
At its peak, he could feel a massive presence.
KRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!
Sensing Dojun’s approach, a powerful roar erupted from the peak—enough to shake the heavens.
A fierce warning to the fearless intruder who had dared step into its domain.
“Sure, you can play king in a little pond like this.”
With a sneer, Dojun began walking toward the ridge.
No hesitation. No fear.
The boss monster of Paju Rift had only been defeated once before.
It took five S-rank heroes and 300 A-rank heroes in a massive joint operation.
From the first trial—the Giant Ground Worms—to the second—the Lamineotes—this Rift was packed with monsters worthy of its Level 2 threat rating.
But even those two gatekeepers were nothing compared to what awaited at the final gate.
The true boss monster of this Rift.
Fwooooom!—BOOOOOM!
Dojun dodged as a massive boulder came crashing down from above. He looked up toward the summit.
This time, two more boulders came flying.
BOOM! BOOOOM!
“So that’s how you wanna play, huh?”
Dojun conjured a spear using his mana.
The crimson mana spear formed in his right hand, and he hurled it with all his might at the peak—at the barely visible silhouette lurking far above.
FWOOOOOOOSH!
The spear sliced through the wind with a crimson streak—
BOOOOOOM!
A massive explosion erupted at the summit.
KRAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!
A scream of pain rang out.
Dojun launched himself forward and sprinted up the slope.
And at the peak—
KRRRRRAAAAAAGHH!
A towering monster stood there, a crimson mana spear impaled in its clavicle, writhing in agony.
Just its size alone—a full 15 meters—made it clear: this was the boss monster of the Paju Rift.
“Bullseye.”
Dojun grinned at the monster, twisted in pain.
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HELIO SCANS
[Translator - Hestia]
[Proofreader - Kaya]
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