Do it

A scream rang out as green bodily fluids scattered through the air.

Sensing a threat to its life, the human-faced spider tried to escape while shooting poison and spider webs, but it was a meaningless resistance.

The poison had no effect, and while the spider webs could somewhat hinder flight, Alice didn’t even need to approach the human-faced spider in the first place – just pulling the trigger was enough.

Each time the railgun spewed fire, a white trajectory was drawn in the air, and before long, the human-faced spider fell to the ground with a death cry.

“This is really amazing.”

What surprised Alice wasn’t the railgun’s power.

She had already grasped the performance of this body and the weapons she possessed through testing.

What surprised Alice was the dragon heart.

Alice knew well how much energy Sophia’s weapons consumed.

Just firing one shot from this railgun would probably use up an entire Intermediate Magic Stone.

Yet despite using such a weapon repeatedly, the dragon heart’s magic power hadn’t decreased at all.

‘Like taking a few buckets of water from the ocean?’

She had felt it during the fight with the pursuit team sent from Mount Hua, but the dragon heart’s magic power was truly inexhaustible.

“But how do I get out of here?”

After returning the railgun to particle state, Alice muttered in a slightly trembling voice.

Though she had enough power to take down a five-hundred-year-old human-faced spider without receiving a single wound, Alice was still a young girl.

Upon realizing she was alone in an unfamiliar place, anxiety gradually rose in her chest.

‘Given the talk of treasure and the appearance of an Arachne, this hidden chamber seems to be some kind of dungeon, but can I clear it alone?’

Alice stared at the only passage while lost in thought.

Though she had easily defeated the Arachne that served as gatekeeper, she didn’t know what dangerous monsters might appear inside.

If it were outside, she could safely take them down with aerial bombardment, but this was underground.

Using high-powered weapons here might cause the ceiling to collapse.

Though this body was sturdy enough not to break from being buried under rocks, she would likely be unable to do anything while pinned under their weight.

‘To avoid such risks, I’d need to fight using close-range weapons instead of high-powered ones, but…’

“Huh?”

Recalling that she had just used the railgun to take down the Arachne, Alice tilted her head.

The railgun using 20mm large-caliber rounds had enough power to pierce through a solid steel tank in one shot.

She had fired not just one but multiple shots, yet this place hadn’t collapsed.

Approaching where the railgun had hit, Alice discovered a slightly crumbled wall and an empty subspace beyond it, making her expression turn to shock.

“It was a subspace?”

This world has no magic.

Though she couldn’t understand how such a large subspace was created in a world without magic, one thing was clear – her previous attack had partially destroyed the subspace.

Seeing the wall slowly regenerating as if time was being rewound, Alice hurriedly reached toward the space behind the wall.

Pop!

Just like when she entered the center of the whirlpool, the world changed in an instant.

Startled by the sudden change in situation, Alice realized she had returned to Lake Dongting and activated her boosters to escape from underwater.

Splash!

“Eek? So-something came out of the water!”

“…Jangsan, are you still drunk? You’re scaring away the fish, so please be quiet.”

“N-no! There! Look up at the sky!”

After confirming connection with the satellite, Alice crossed the night sky, leaving the fishermen behind.

There was no longer any need to wander underwater.

* * *

Heaven-Communicating Divine Demon’s Tomb.

Inside a massive cavern.

Yuseong smiled brightly while looking at the six characters engraved above the passage.

“Well done. Very well done!”

“Don’t tell me you’re trying to write off the dozens of days I spent searching underwater for just eight characters?”

“O-of course not. Is there something you want?”

“Hmm. Let me think about it and tell you later.”

Avoiding Alice’s glare as she slightly turned her head, Yuseong looked around.

A massive cavern that seemed dozens of meters tall and a huge dark passage extending in a straight line.

After thoroughly searching the cavern and confirming there was nothing special, Yuseong took out a drone to scout the passage but made a troubled expression.

As if there was some force interfering with communications, the drone’s signal wouldn’t connect properly.

Even when it did connect, the signal would cut off after just a few meters, causing it to land on the ground.

After retrieving the drone, Yuseong took a deep breath and stepped into the passage together with Alice.

Thump thump.

Click clack.

Their alternating footsteps echoed through the quiet passage.

Both Yuseong and Alice moved forward slowly without saying anything while staying alert to their surroundings.

After advancing about fifty meters.

Along with a faint sound of mechanical devices operating, sword blades shot out from the walls.

“Watch out!”

The response was instantaneous.

Since he had been reciting the Asura Perception Way mantra from the moment he stepped into the passage, he could easily dodge the sword blade flying at his neck and even had the leisure to warn Alice.

But the attacks didn’t end there.

Swoosh!

Two spears flying toward his chest and shoulder with a time delay.

Just as he hurriedly bent backward to dodge the attacks, three arrows shot toward both thighs and his neck.

‘These aren’t random attacks. They’re precisely targeting my openings.’

If he made large movements and lost his balance, it would become even more dangerous.

He needed to dodge the attacks with minimal movement possible.

After finishing his situation assessment, Yuseong calmly began moving his body in the slowed time.

After narrowly dodging the arrows by twisting his body sideways, Yuseong discovered an axe that had suddenly appeared right in front of his face and reflexively raised his arm.

‘Heavy!’

Even with his strength increased by Thousand Hands and various items’ effects, the weight was enough to feel slightly burdensome.

As his posture faltered, countless weapons came flying as if they had been waiting for this moment.

“Hup”

Realizing it was impossible to dodge so narrowly anymore, Yuseong used Flash Step with the intention of escaping the attack range entirely.

And the moment he launched his body forward, countless weapons beyond counting shot from all directions.

This was absolutely impossible to dodge.

Sensing death, Yuseong instinctively activated the skill embedded in his item.

Flash!

As the light emitted from his earring seeped into his body, countless weapons pounded against Yuseong.

A precious sword made of eternal cold iron with supreme durability, a spear made of blood stone that could disperse internal energy, an axe made of dark iron twice as heavy as steel of the same size.

But none of them could wound Yuseong.

Clang clang clang clang!

Yuseong raised both arms to cover his face and blindly ran forward.

How long did he run like that?

Just before the skill’s effect ended, the attacks finally ceased.

“Hah, hah, hah.”

Yuseong immediately collapsed to the ground.

Though there was no physical fatigue, the mental fatigue accumulated from going through death’s door was considerable.

“Mr. Yuseong! Are you alright? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“I’m just resting. …Wait. How did you get here?”

“At first I tried to dodge, but there were too many attacks so I endured with my body like you did, Mr. Yuseong.”

“Is your body okay?”

“Of course.”

The only damage Alice had taken was torn clothes and faint scratches on her frame.

While taking out new clothes for Alice, Yuseong checked the earring’s information.

<Divine Artifact Blessing>

-Rank: S

-Type: Earring

-An earring specially created by a goddess who could not bear to watch heroes repeatedly lose to the 31st Demon Lord, called the strongest Demon Lord in history. Grants the owner absolute protection that can block even attacks from gods and demon lords.

-All abilities +100

-Can use Absolute Protection skill that perfectly nullifies all types of impacts for 1 minute (Cooldown: 720 hours)

An earring obtained as a reward from [The Hero Who Couldn’t Become a Hero] quest.

Despite being S-rank, it only had two options and one of them was just increasing all abilities by 100, but the other option had performance that could only be called broken.

Perfect nullification of all types of impacts.

Though it had the disadvantage of a one-month cooldown for just 1 minute duration, it was no exaggeration to say it was like having a spare life.

‘No, it’s more than that.’

The Absolute Protection skill doesn’t just block impacts from outside, but nullifies all types of impacts.

This means it nullifies everything from bones breaking and muscles tearing from the recoil of using Tyrant’s arms at full power, to damage and internal injuries from using an absurd 10,000 points of energy.

Depending on how it was used, it could be not just a spare life but a trump card that could reverse the outcome of a battle.

While imagining just how much power could be output if he went all out with his Earth body, Yuseong stood up.

“Let’s get moving.”

“What? Weren’t we going back now?”

“We haven’t even gotten away from the entrance yet. We should at least learn the rough structure of the hidden chamber and its traps.”

“You almost died from the first trap! We don’t know what traps or monsters there might be, it’s too dangerous to keep going forward!”

Alice looked straight into Yuseong’s eyes and pleaded desperately.

Though a user could revive even if they died during a quest, the pain and fear felt in the process of dying didn’t disappear.

Having indirectly experienced 999 deaths alongside Yuseong, Alice knew better than anyone how horrific that was, and wished Yuseong wouldn’t experience death anymore.

“Alice!”

Feeling Alice’s sincere concern, Yuseong spoke with a touched expression.

“Alright. Then since we don’t know what might happen, I’ll wait here, so could you scout ahead instead? You’re sturdy so you can do it, right?”

“…What?”

* * *

“Wow, this is almost like a photograph. Good work. Go rest.”

“……”

Alice glared at Yuseong with narrowed eyes before letting out a deep sigh and going to a corner.

Deliberately ignoring the itchy feeling on the back of his head, Yuseong focused on the paper Alice had handed over.

“The difficulty is brutal.”

The hidden chamber was a death space filled with all sorts of traps and formations, unidentifiable insects and strange life forms.

It was absolutely impossible to clear with just himself and Alice.

To reach the end would require cooperation with martial artists, and not just one or two but many masters.

‘Though the latter option is the only choice, the problem is the difficulty becomes too low then.’

If the difficulty decreases, that means more survivors, and when they reach where the treasure is, the possibility of conflict increases.

Even if they don’t fight, following the logic of power, the side that preserved more forces would take more treasure.

“This is completely like cooking porridge to feed dogs.”

Gathering just an appropriate number of martial artists to clear the dungeon is also unrealistic.

Currently there are hundreds of thousands of martial artists gathered around Lake Dongting.

By Yuseong’s estimation, the minimum number needed to clear the hidden chamber would be at least three hundred masters.

One or two people might be different.

But with around three hundred people, there would definitely be a few who would leak information outside, and rumors would spread everywhere before even half a day passed.

Even if many people challenge it, the number of survivors needs to be few enough for him to control.

After thinking for a while, Yuseong soon recalled something and muttered in a small voice.

“…Remodeling.”