God-Tier Enhancement: My Upgrades Never Fail-Chapter 250: Episode _Thug of Light and Darkness (7)

10.

Darkness rippled. The massive black crystal, sucking in countless streams of dark magic, whined endlessly, as if its stomach would never be full. Han Simin, hammering away at it, wore an expression of utter seriousness.

“Phew. +3.”

“Wow. Already?”

“In the early stages, there’s no chance of it breaking, so you just slam away. But if we really wanted to be safe, it’d be best to pry this black crystal out and carry it around while enhancing. Is that a no-go?”

“...Probably not. Want me to ask?” Yeseul offered.

The answer that came back from the other mages was a firm no.

Even so, with a sliver of hope, Han Simin looked at the black mage standing behind Yeseul, but the fierce glare he got in return left him no choice but to click his tongue.

“Tch. Cowards. What, you don’t trust me not to grab this thing and bolt for the high life? Worst case, you could just follow me.”

Of course, he was about seventy percent inclined to do just that, but he was the one who had said there was no time and that they needed to hurry up and summon the demons, so he didn’t argue further.

Either way, whether he enhanced this thing to +15, +10, or +5, his pay wouldn’t change.

His mission was simply to summon a Gate to the Demon World.

To do that, he only needed to enhance it just enough. There was no need to go out of his way and work harder to make it perfect.

RA-TA-TA!

So despite the heavy atmosphere, his hammer blows were oddly light.

He only planned to go up to +7, the highest enhancement level with no chance of destruction.

If he actually ran the numbers, going up to +9, where the destruction chance was fifteen percent, wouldn’t be a big deal. But in a life where even a 0.7-percent chance could make things blow up in your face, he had no desire to push his luck.

Besides, hadn’t he already proven that even without a high enhancement level, simply using a Gate imbued with demonic energy significantly increased its effectiveness?

If he got carried away enhancing the Gate and the Demon King himself popped out, all his “big picture” plans would go up in flames, and the continent might be overrun by demons in less than a week.

So he had to be careful.

He had to control it well.

+4, +5.

With each flash of light, he checked the black mages’ reactions.

He also checked the state of the magic circle.

If they seemed a little too excited, he would ease off.

What Han Simin wanted was to play both sides and skim the cream off the top, not to give them his all and let the situation spiral out of control.

Vrrrr—

After watching the mood and spacing out his enhancements, he successfully brought the black crystal up to +7.

The small enhancements began to add up.

At the lower levels, the effects hadn’t done much, but at +7, the black crystal was spewing out darker magic power than ever before.

It felt like it could summon a massive Gate at any moment and drag every demon in the Demon World through.

The black mages were thrilled by the atmosphere.

They squeezed out even more dark magic.

Naturally, the more the magic circle was enhanced, the more dark magic it required.

Thanks to the enhancement, the absolute total didn’t increase by that much, but they poured out their dark magic as if they were ready to give up their lives.

VWOOM—

Was this the fruit of their efforts?

The black crystal began to shake violently.

Han Simin, standing right in front of it, even took a step back, wondering if it was about to explode.

It felt like something was about to happen any second now.

And at that moment, something really did happen in the distance.

“Uwaaaah! Hey! Stop that bitch!”

He froze.

“No!”

In that instant, everyone’s gaze snapped in that direction.

Letting one’s attention wander at a moment this critical should have been unthinkable, yet no one could help it.

How could they look away? A brilliant, pure-white radiance was piercing through the darkness—a darkness deeper than pitch black, one that seemed ready to swallow the world whole—and searing itself into their eyes.

Han Simin was no exception.

’What the hell is going on?’

Curiosity alone made him turn his head.

And he saw her.

He saw Aria, blazing like a true angel, holy power streaming from her entire body in torrents as she flew toward them at incredible speed.

At the same time, a picture formed in his mind.

A vision of the future, exactly one minute from now.

Aria would come hurtling in, smash the black crystal to pieces, and go out in a glorious explosion.

It was a perfect nightmare where he lost two things at once—no, far more than that.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

He had given those two time specifically so they could beat each other up, work out their ancient grudge, and be done with it. Why the hell had she stopped fighting halfway through to pull this insane stunt?

He didn’t even have a chance to vent his frustration and rage.

A reflex he didn’t even know he possessed shot out of his mouth.

“Stop! Don’t!”

She didn’t respond.

It was an order.

Of course, Aria, having completely lost her reason, wasn’t about to listen to some shouted command.

But the dog collar around her neck was a different story.

FLASH!

“Kyaaaa!”

It was a Special-grade artifact, after all, one that had been treasured by the Black Dragon Kardian herself. Its effectiveness was guaranteed.

In an instant, all the holy power that had been pouring out of Aria’s body vanished.

With the blinding radiance gone, what came into view was her stunning figure, revealed through a black robe that barely qualified as clothing.

On any other day, Han Simin would have sat back and enjoyed the view. Even the black mages, enemy or not, would have happily ogled her.

But right now, no one had that luxury.

Her holy power had disappeared, but her speed had not.

The collar had neutralized her will, but unfortunately, it couldn’t rewrite the laws of physics.

At this rate, she was going to slam straight into the black crystal.

And then?

’What happens if she hits it?’

He didn’t know.

What was certain was that she would collide with it. Even a crystal embedded firmly in the ground would be shaken, which would mean cracks in the magic circle.

’We can just rebuild it afterward?’

If that were possible, there would have been no point in thousands of black mages standing perfectly still just to maintain the circle.

Han Simin finished that line of thought and threw himself forward.

For a man who hated walking so much that he had taken a carriage just to get Squeaker, and then had ridden Squeaker everywhere since, the way he launched his body now was almost unbelievable.

He lunged and grabbed her.

His timing was a little off, so he ended up catching her around the waist and burying his face in her chest, but he had no time to savor that pleasant little mistake.

He had to change her trajectory.

For the first time, he truly felt the payoff of all the stat points he had poured into his physical attributes as he twisted his body with everything he had.

THUD.

But she had been flying in with such perfect accuracy from the start. The spot where Han Simin managed to snatch her was far too close to the black crystal.

He managed to deflect her a bit, but the crystal still took a hit.

It tilted.

The crystal let out a harsh roar, as if it were alive. Where earlier it had sounded satisfied, now it was enraged.

The magic circle shook violently.

A storm on a completely different level from before came crashing down.

[You are being exposed to Dark Magic Power.]

[Your HP is decreasing.]

Merciless punishment swept across the world.

The worst-case scenario.

And at the same time, it was exactly the outcome Aria had wanted.

As the black mages stood there, at a loss, a cold, rough voice cut through them.

“The magic circle is going to collapse! Activate it before it does!”

At Grokile’s shout—he had chased Aria here at full speed—the black mages snapped back into formation and focused their dark magic again.

Their scattered minds refocused in an instant. This time, instead of letting the black crystal passively suck in their dark magic, they actively controlled it, forcing the power to be absorbed.

WOOOOOM!

The violent backlash injured the black mages, but they didn’t care. Some of them coughed up blood, yet not a single one moved.

This was the grand design they had been working toward for hundreds of years. They themselves had not lived that long, but it was a will passed down from their predecessors, a taboo laid upon them, a destiny they had lived for. Now, they were sacrificing themselves to fulfill it.

VWOOOOOM!

As if to honor that resolve, Han Simin raised his hammer as well.

Pathetically, his stamina was so low that he couldn’t even get up with Aria lying on top of him, but it was more than enough to pound on the tilted black crystal right next to him.

“Haah... What kind of bullshit grind is this?”

He didn’t need any ritual to increase the enhancement success rate. If he couldn’t find a lucky spot, then it all came down to luck anyway. Besides, they were in a situation where the magic circle might collapse at any moment.

Whether it collapsed or was destroyed, if he could raise it even one more level and help trigger the circle, he was ready to do whatever it took.

’Crap. If this thing just breaks, I die without getting paid. That’s it, isn’t it?’

He absolutely could not let that happen.

If he died, he had to die alone. He had gone through ridiculous layers of luck to get his hands on Aria; if he died, she would die with him. Then Kardian would likely be in danger as well.

BANG! BANG!

The black crystal resisted violently.

Dark magic poured down on them.

And Han Simin’s hammer blows piled on top of that.

Under the three-way assault, the black crystal finally bowed its head.

FLASH.

The magic circle activated.

The black mages who had been maintaining the circle all collapsed at once.

The only ones still standing near the black crystal were the Specialists, Han Simin, and Aria.

But even they were soon swallowed by the pitch-black darkness erupting from the magic circle.

No, the entire world was covered in black.

The battlefield was no exception.

After a long time passed and the darkness finally receded—

Silence fell.

Absolute silence.

There was nothing left near the magic circle.

No demons. No Specialists. No Han Simin. No Aria. No Grokile.

*

Kenji, who had been fighting on the battlefield, saw the darkness as well.

To say he “saw” it felt almost wrong; his vision had simply gone black all of a sudden, then cleared after a long while. Still, he could at least tell from experience that something had happened.

At the same time, his gaze swung toward the black mages’ camp.

He gasped.

There were fewer of them.

Noticeably fewer.

’How did I not catch that sooner?’

Regret surged through him, but it was already too late.

The viewers watching his stream were in an uproar.

—What was that?

—Why did the stream just cut out?

—No, it didn’t cut, it just went dark.

—Next phase?

—The demon and the celestial suddenly started fighting, then the celestial flew off somewhere, and then the darkness hit.

—Feels exactly like a next-phase trigger.

—Damn. I’ve got chills. I saw a post on the community forums the other day, someone asking if this war was actually a giant sacrifice for the black mages to open a massive Gate and summon demons. What if that’s really it? The guy who posted it said he’s a history teacher in real life, and in FW he plays by going to the library to read history books for fun. He became a librarian NPC and got to read old history books no one else could access.

—If that’s true, what happens now? Is this war screwed?

—If it’s real, demons are about to pour out.

—Holy shit.

It was all just speculation.

But the guesses of Fantastic World users were usually sharp, accurate, and on point. That was how much FW had gone beyond being just a game and become another world.

With the “experts” weighing in, the battlefield heated up even more alongside the broadcast.

“Kuhahahahaha! The darkness shall descend!”

The black mages’ simultaneous shouting only amplified the unease and lent credibility to the speculation.

However, as time passed, no evidence appeared to prove those theories.

Even after a long while.

An awkward silence settled over the black mages, the Continental Army, and the viewers alike.

*