Max Level Newbie

Max Level Newbie Chapter 44

Like always, to recover their internal energies, Lee Jung-Yup and Dokgo Hoo were performing meditation through slow breathing to direct internal energy through the bloodstream. There was Jang-Ho standing next two the two men sitting in lotus position.

This place was well hidden, and it was unlikely that they would be discovered, but just in case, he was standing guard for them.

It was showing how old fashioned and meticulous he was.

“…!”

Jang-Ho, who was standing guard and being wary of the surroundings, heard something unusual.

It was the sounds of Vulcan’s footsteps generated as he walked toward them from the inside of the Underground Graveyard. Also, there was a presence of a mighty existence tearing through the air.

BOOM!

The gate at the entrance of the graveyard exploded from a powerful force. A few pieces of bones flew away at high speeds as if a claymore exploded. Surprised, Jang-Ho raised and swung his fists.

WOONG

A grand scale level of energy wave was poured out and protected Dokgo Hoo, Lee Jung-Yup and Jake from the shards.

A loud sound of shockwave shook the underground cave, and stone crumbles fell from the ceiling. Jang-Ho created a gust of wind with his fist to clear the line of sight and confirm the man responsible for all this.

However, Jang-Ho could only see the back side of the man.

Before long, the man had already ran outside the quest area. As Jang-Ho watched this, he murmured,

“Vulcan…!”

Noticing his golden lightning surrounding the body, incredible speed where another can’t even respond properly to, and moreover, the aura of the strongest that could be felt naturally even from having a glance at his back, Jang-Ho realized that,

‘Vulcan, you broke through the wall!’

Jang-Ho intuitively realized that Vulcan made a giant leap toward the new ground. He was vacantly staring at the direction where Vulcan just left, but he quickly got a hold of his mind.

‘I must not let him go there by himself.’

He was certainly stronger.

Before this, Jang-Ho thought Vulcan was about as strong as himself or a little stronger. Now, Jang-Ho couldn’t even gauge on how strong Vulcan was.

He figured that Vulcan must be full of confidence and have rushed out to the surface because Vulcan is almost certain of his victory against Ho-Gyeong on a duel to the death, about nine out of ten chances of success.

However, even so, it was not good to let him just charge in by himself like a wild boar who was provoked by a near-miss arrow.

‘If, by a bad luck, he runs into the members of the Order before he could get to Ho-Gyeong…’

Before he could challenge Ho-Gyeong for a duel to the death, he could die from their joint attack.

No matter how strong Vulcan have become, the Order was still an organization with many Zenith-Warriors among its ranks.

If Vulcan was going to show off his height to everyone, it was not going to be too late to do so after returning to the city safely with Dokgo Hoo and Lee Jung-Yup.

“T… That guy, why is he acting like that!”

It appeared Jake was thinking the same thing. He crumpled his face and pointed toward where Vulcan went.

“Really. If he achieved something, he should calm down first and explain it to us. He should spend time making a plan with us and stuff too! Also, why is he running out in such a hurry? What for? We could just open a portal and get moving!”

Jang-Ho was thinking the same thing.

The Vulcan that they knew was a methodological man who always had a lot of thoughts in his mind and made moves after careful considerations. The rash move by Vulcan just now was completely different from how Vulcan had always been.

Watching Vulcan acting like Dokgo Hoo, Jang-Ho also tilted his head to the sides in wonder.

“For now, let’s go to the city after Lee Jung-Yup and Dokgo Hoo complete their energy cycle meditation. They will probably complete it in next fifteen minutes.”

“Ugh… We should. I hope nothing bad happens to Vulcan in the mean time.”

Jang-Ho seriously hoped as he looked at the Underground Graveyard’s gate that Vulcan destroyed.

‘I hope he got far stronger than I ever imagined.’

Meanwhile, Vulcan was not worried about anything at all. His lack of worries was to the point it was making Jake and Jang-Ho’s worries look ridiculous.

Vulcan was only focused on getting to the Beloong City as fast as he could. With all of his strength, he charged forward.

KUWA KUWA KUWA KUWA

Numerous Hellgoats in the north gate field rushed toward Vulcan to attack him, but it was useless. Before they could get close, Vulcan disappeared with his incredible speed.

In disappointment, Hellgoats made goat-like cry sounds, scratched their heads, and returned to their places. That’s all they could do.

Literally, Vulcan was running through the field with absolutely nothing getting on his way.

Vulcan had become like a stream of lightning. He spotted a smile on his face.

‘This feels exhilarating!’

He felt so light that he wondered if he could fly.

All the things that had been chaining him down until this point felt trivial now.

Until now, Vulcan had been trying to go about things carefully with plans and avoid risk or danger. He also had been willing to go along with the political situations for that end. Now, he almost felt foolish for having lived so long thinking that way.

‘I’m not even all that smart to begin with. I wonder why I had been living my life like that?’

He wanted to get stronger steadily within the bounds of safety.

Although he knew that his brain was not cut out to spin all that well to begin with, he forced it to spin and made plans and did his best in Asgard, and he had been doing everything he could to move toward ways that would minimize dangers or risks.

However, in the end,

‘I became the sworn enemy of the Order. I was abandoned by the Denomination as well.’

Now, he had no reason to act that way anymore.

Without giving it any more thought, Vulcan embraced the power erupting from within.

He could feel the power of the Thunder God’s Might seething inside him. Vulcan found confidence in its power. He felt like everything will go well if he allowed its offensive power to flow free to his hearts satisfaction.

Actually, he felt that letting the power go wild was the only way to bring about the best outcome.

‘Ho-Gyeong, Bellon… I’m going to destroy whichever that comes in sight first.’

The speed of Vulcan dashing through the north gate field increased further.

***

Ho-Gyeong was taking a walk through the north gate field. He was here to blow off some steam against monsters.

Of course, there was no way doing something like this was going to make his worries disappear.

Even before this, he came to the north gate field and turned the monsters into ground meat several times, but every time, all that Ho-Gyeong was left with was a sense of emptiness and even a bit of fear.

‘I sent eight.’

The eight that he sent were no ordinary warriors. All of them were considered to be on the top end of the Zenith-Rate.

The subordinates that he sent could be called the core members of the Order, but not even one of them returned alive.

‘Even Lee Jung-Yup, the 7th in the Golden Ranking! Fighting them all would have been difficult even for me…’

This was the reason why he sent the eight warriors.

Vulcan and Dokgo Hoo were graduates in training, but they were still not fully matured at the time. It was difficult for Ho-Gyeong to imagine that their battle against eight of the Order’s most powerful warriors resulted in the death of everyone in both sides.

‘Also, it is possible… Maybe not everyone died.’

After a search to find his subordinates that never returned, the Order found traces of the battle at a place.

However, all they found were disturbances and destructions on the field. The whole scene looked unnatural as if someone destroyed all evidence.

By worrisome thoughts constantly coming up to his head, the expression on Ho-Gyeong’s face hardened.

‘Looks like… I should assume at least one of them have broke through the wall.’

The sudden awakening in middle of battle was the one thing that Ho-Gyeong was most concerned about.

It was most likely that one of the two made a leap into becoming an Ultra-Zenith-Rate at an instant, cleaned up Ho-Gyeong’s subordinates, and went into hiding.

Ho-Gyeong figured the awakened one must be in a safe place somewhere and sharpening his blade of vengeance.

Because of this, since that incident, Ho-Gyeong had never gone anywhere by himself. Instead, he always had his subordinates accompany him.

He figured that even the awakened ones will be lacking in power to kill him if they fought him along with his subordinates on his side.

It was hurting his pride, but it could not be helped. If he went somewhere by himself and got ambushed, he was not going to be able to be sure about the safety of his own life.

‘I wish they just left Act 1 instead.’

Just like Ho-Gyeong found their existence to be a problem, if Vulcan and Dokgo Hoo also found Ho-Gyeong’s forces to be eye sores, it was possible that they may have defeated Sarantis in secret and left the Act 1.

It was an end to the trouble that was the best for Ho-Gyeong, and it was also not too low on possibilities.

It was what Ho-Gyeong was hoping for.

However, the situation was not flowing in the direction he hoped for.

There was a golden light that could be seen in the far distance.

A powerful energy could be felt from the direction. It was enough even for Ho-Gyeong, who was in deep thoughts, to turn around and look.

The light was very far away. It was on the bleeding edge of the horizon, but before he realized, the man was already close enough for Ho-Gyeong to see his face.

Ho-Gyeong strained and opened his eyes wide in surprise.

Having confirmed who it was, Ho-Gyeong groaned,

‘Vulcan!’

Ho-Gyeong quickly drew his blade and raised up his power to 120%. His subordinates, having realized late that it was Vulcan that was approaching this way, followed suit and assumed combat stances.

Baek-Un, the Order’s adjutant, said,

“My lord, it may not be the place for me to say this, but…”

He was trying to pretend to be calm, but the look on his face was hardened even more from his attempt to look calm, so instead, he actually looked like he was choking in fear.

Ho-Gyeong worried if his own face had a similar expression.

“I think we should call for more people.”

SHUUUUOOK.

BOOM!

Baek-Un went ahead and shoot up the signal flare without getting permission from Ho-Gyeong.

However, Ho-Gyeong couldn’t scold Beck-Un for his action.

There was Vulcan already standing in front of them. Vulcan looked confident and relaxed with nerves to spare.

As Ho-Gyeong looked at Vulcan standing like that, the insides of Ho-Gyeong chest became full of a sense of defeat.

‘Ultra-Zenith-Rate… No. It is not. This astonishing presence… it is like the time I met The Six for the first time…’

Ho-Gyeong gulped.

It looked like the outcome would be decided before his subordinates could arrive.

Toward Vulcan, who was just looking at Ho-Gyeong with curious eyes, one of Ho-Gyeong’s minions said,

“You runt, how dare you stand in the way of our Lord’s…”

CHUZUZUZUZUK

“KUUURK!”

THUMP.

“…!”

None of the subordinates, including Beck-Un, saw Vulcan discharging lightning.

All they noticed was that there was a sudden flash of light in front of them, but now, there was one of their allies falling to the ground with his face down and his body giving off smoke.

It was an incredibly fast lightning magic that even Ho-Gyeong had to focus with all of his might just to realize it.

“I’m trying to quietly dispose of just Ho-Gyeong and Bellon, yet…”

Vulcan moved his neck about in all directions and stretched his body.

As he moved, the golden lightning surrounding his body was making dangerous sounds.

“Others won’t let me be.”

“Uu… uu!”

Other than Beck-Un, two of the subordinates used lightened step technique and put distance from Vulcan.

It was a shameful act to abandon their own lord and run, but from the start, they were forced to join the Order because of its influence. They didn’t have the royalty to throw away their lives in attept to protect its lord.

Of course, those were their thoughts. With infuriated faces, Baek-Un and Ho-Gyeong glared at their back.

“You sons of bitc…!”

PAZIZIZIZIC

“KUUUAK!”

“KUURK!”

THUMP

THUMP

“…!”

Although Ho-Gyeong and Baek-Un wanted to tear them apart for running away, and although the they could not make any move because they were facing Vulcan, as if he was trying to say that Ho-Gyeong and Baek-Un were no threat to him, Vulcan conveniently vaporized the nerves in the two subordinates who were running away.

Just by two streams of lightning strikes, three have died.

The lightning strikes launched from Vulcan’s light movements with his blade contained deadly power to kill an opponent in a single strike.

“Looks like they think the lives of others are cheap and only their own lives are precious. Don’t you think so? Mr. Ho-Gyeong the Blade King?”

With no change in the expression on his face, Ho-Gyeong glared at Vulcan.

On the other hand, it was Baek-Un that stepped forward and criticized Vulcan.

“You runt! Have you never thought about the disgrace that you inflicted upon our lord!”

Vulcan slowly tilted his head toward Baek-Un and glared at him.

Vulcan’s eyes looked rather disinterested. However, inside his eyes, a suppressed rage could be felt. Feeling pressured by Vulcan’s aura, Baek-Un took steps back, and Vulcan opened his mouth and said,

“If you asked me to have this conversation two years ago… I think I would have tried to spin my head to resolve all this in a good way, but…”

Only

Vulcan held the Heavenly Lightning Blade in his hand. It was glowing with holy lights.

The blade’s tip was pointed toward Baek-Un. Sensing danger, Baek-Un charged toward Vulcan in order to snatch the first strike.

Baek-Un came at Vulcan with his ultimate attack, the Uni-Blade. He even poured in his life force with out any thoughts about conserving it, knowing that excessive use of the life force could result in permanent injuries or even death.

Volcano like power poured out from Beck-Un’s blade. Its power was unimaginable under ordinary circumstances. However, its power never reached Vulcan.

BOOMBABOOM

Vulcan charged forward at an incredible speed, so fast that even Ho-Gyeong could not see.

The tip of Vulcan’s blade met with Baek-Un’s head and caused it to explode.

It was a violent scene as if he had been hit by an artillery round.

There were cerebrospinal fluids spewing out, and with cracked skull and blood splatter all over the place, they created a very grotesque scene.

SPLASH SPLASH-

Even as he stood with broken pieces of flash from his royal subordinate falling on his face, Ho-Gyeong glared at Vulcan. From his mouth, a dry voice could be heard,

“Ever since I saw you for the first time, I always thought you were an eyesore bastard that brings foul luck…”

“I feel the same. Whenever I saw you, I was always disgusted.”

Vulcan responded with voice full of life,

“But, it sure feels great to see the expression on your face now.”