Return of the Frozen Player

Alba’s eyes widened. It was obvious what kind of business transaction Specter wanted to do together with her.

“Um…” Her expression stiffened as she answered, “Thank you for the offer, but I don’t think I will be of much help.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I checked, and it turns out that he has equal strength distributed in all parts of his body.”

In other words, Plutus had no weakness.

However, Seo Jun-Ho looked like he didn’t care.

“That doesn’t matter. What’s important is your ability to illuminate certain parts of his body. Do you think you can do it?”

“Yes, I think I can do it. The fact that he has equal strength in all parts of his body also means that his body is equally weak.”

‘That’s good enough.’

Seo Jun-Ho nodded and looked back at Skaya.

“Huh? What is it? Do you need my magic?”

“I sure do.” Seo Jun-Ho stared at the battlefield for a while before muttering, “I’ll need to make a voice to bring everyone together for this battle.”

***

Crashhhh!

When Plutus stomped, a sandstorm occurred and blew the Players away.

“Spat! Spat! I got sand in my mouth! Damn it!”

“Damn it! I can’t get close to him!”

“What the heck are those long-ranged combatants doing?”

“Excuse me? Do you really think we’re just sitting around and doing nothing?”

The long-ranged combatants immediately protested against the complaints of the close-ranged combatants. The long-ranged combatants weren’t at fault because they were constantly attacking Plutus.

Bang! Crash!

The Players managed to break Plutus’ walls, but Plutus casually replaced those with more walls.

“We can’t even get close to him, and the ranged attacks aren’t strong enough to do any significant damage to him.”

“Plutus is a god, and his regeneration rate is impossible to overcome—is that what the System is trying to tell us?”

“This is ridiculous. There’s no way we can beat a monster like that.”

On the contrary, the Player casualties were increasing. The Players’ attacks on Plutus weren’t working on Plutus, but Plutus’ attacks were strong enough to inflict serious damage on any unfortunate Player.

“Move the wounded to the back!”

“Healer! Are there any healers here? My friend is seriously injured!”

The battlefield quickly became filled with screams and cries.

- Ahem, hmm.

A voice echoed. To be more specific, the voice didn’t echo right next to the Players’ ears. Instead, it completely pervaded the battlefield. The Players looked up to find the source of the sound.

“That’s…”

“Specter-nim and Skaya-nim?”

“It’s magic! His voice is amplified by magic!”

Beneath the Players’ gazes, Seo Jun-Ho calmly spoke,

- From now on, certain parts of Plutus’ body will shine. Focus your attacks on those areas and follow my lead.

The Players were dumbfounded by the sudden demand, but none of them protested.

In fact, a few Players who noticed Seo Jun-Ho’s intentions trembled.

‘...He’s going to command us.’

‘Goodness. Did Specter seriously just say that he’ll lead us himself?’

Specter had one characteristic that would always get mentioned in the modern books related to him. It was one of his less highlighted characteristics because of his overwhelming power as an individual Player.

It was his ability to lead people as a commander. He had won many miraculous victories in the many wars against the fiends many decades ago.

“I never imagined that I would one day be under Specter’s command.”

“Perhaps this will be a battle that will go down in history—a battle that will be recorded in the history books.”

‘Just like how the first-generation Players followed Specter and created their own pages in history.’

Seo Jun-Ho spoke in a firm voice, “Alba Mils. You are my brush from now on. You have to paint exactly where I tell you to paint.”

“O-okay…I mean, yes, sir!”

Alba hurriedly mustered her magic and looked at Seo Jun-Ho, waiting for his order.

“...”

Seo Jun-Ho’s indifferent eyes scanned the battlefield. The Players’ positions and their abilities quickly came to his mind. He used those data to calculate what kind of attack would hurt Plutus the most.

“We will start with his eye.”

“W-we’ll start with his eye…!”

Alba recited Seo Jun-Ho’s order without realizing it.

She directed her shining eyes toward Plutus’ eye.

Flash!

Plutus’ left eye shone brilliantly, and a bullet quickly penetrated Plutus’ eye.

“...”

The shooter, Gilberto Green, wasn’t thrilled after landing a successful attack. He clenched his fists and heightened his concentration.

‘I should be able to save time as long as I follow Jun-Ho’s commands.’

Gilberto’s thoughts quickly came true.

“Right clavicle, solar plexus, heart, neck, and then his forehead.”

Seo Jun-Ho’s speedy commands made Alba feel dizzy.

She bit her lips and made sure to keep up with Seo Jun-Ho’s orders.

Crash! Crashhh!

The focus fire under Seo Jun-Ho’s command was certainly more effective against Plutus.

“It’s working. The attacks are working!”

“...But it’s not enough. We still can’t kill that bastard...”

The frantic attacks disturbed Plutus, but that was all.

Plutus simply wrapped himself up with his walls as if he were an armadillo.

Crack!

Plutus built more walls over his skin to defend the parts of his body that the Players were focusing down.

At the sight, Seo Jun-Ho spoke. “Now. Both of his popliteus and hamstrings.”

Popliteus was the back of the knee. If the popliteus and the hamstrings were attacked at the same time, strength wouldn’t matter because everyone would show the same reaction upon being attacked in those locations at the same time.

‘Especially if the weight is on his upper body…’

“H-he’s falling over!”

“Wait… he is still holding out?”

Stomppp!

Plutus reflexively stepped on one knee and barely stopped himself from falling.

However, Seo Jun-Ho had been waiting for that.

“Mio.” That was it. Seo Jun-Ho didn’t need to give her additional orders because they had been fighting together for so long.

“Understood.”

Mio held two swords in both hands and soared into the air.

Swoosh!

Plutus reached out with his hand toward Mio.

“Destroy him.”

Mio lightly landed on the back of Plutus’ hand, and as if she had heard Seo Jun-Ho’s muttering from afar, she immediately charged forward.

Slash!

Mio spun like a top while dual wielding. Sparks flew everywhere as Mio mutilated Plutus’ arm in the proverbial blink of an eye. Upon reaching Plutus’ shoulder, Mio kicked off of the shoulder and leaped into the air.

[...!]

Plutus’ eyes clapped on a tiny and trivial life the size of a bug.

Plutus hurriedly swung his other arm toward Mio.

“Woo-Joong,” Seo Jun-Ho spat/

Fwooosh!

A sword flew toward Plutus at the speed of light and cleanly severed Plutus’ massive arm.

‘It’s your time to shine, Mio.’

A heavy sense of responsibility weighed down on her shoulders.

However, Mio had long gotten used to that, so she was fine.

‘I still haven’t mastered the Bright Sky Purple Style...’

She had read the technique countless times now, but she still couldn’t quite grasp it. It wasn’t really strange because the head of the Tenmei Family was the one who was supposed to pass it down to his successor.

“...”

Mio had no one to teach her the Bright Sky Purple Style, so she felt like she was walking on a foggy read with no end in sight. Still, Mio remained adamant about continuing the journey. She had to get stronger; she had to catch up to her friends.

“Blue Moon Style Second Move: Sword of the Swallow. Red Sun Style Third Move: Bowing Cloud.”

A sharp yet clandestine energy swirled around the sword on Mio’s left hand, while a vigorous, fierce energy surrounded the sword on her right hand. The two sword styles pursued different goals, but they blossomed in Mio’s hands.

The essences of the two sword styles were different from each other, but right now, they had the same goal.

“Die.”

Mio gracefully rotated in mid-air like a fluttering butterfly, and the contrasting energy swirling around the two swords combined.

Fwooosh!

The walls covering Plutus’ face were quickly torn apart.

[...!]

Plutus felt a sense of crisis. He came to the conclusion that he couldn’t allow himself to take more damage, so he started retreating.

However, he started shining once more.

“His entire body…?”

“His entire body is shining!”

“Come on, let’s go!”

The Players fired their most powerful attacks as if they had been waiting for this moment. Plutus grew frustrated by the combined damage that he was suffering from taking the brunt of a hundred people’s attacks at once.

Plutus decided to curl up to try and rebuild the walls over his skin.

At the sight, Seo Jun-Ho ordered. “Now.”

The time to end this had arrived.

“Hm. I personally think that letting you recover will be more fun, and I want to play more as well.” Sparks surrounded Rahmadat as he approached Plutus with steady steps. “But my friends will get mad at me if I delay, so I’m sorry. I have no choice but to do this.”

‘Emancipation…!’

Rahmadat entered Turiya and charged toward Plutus like a meteor. Plutus had suffered enough damage that he couldn’t recover as quickly anymore, so he decided to focus his on his chin.

[...!]

Boom!

Rahamadat’s fist ruthlessly sent an uppercut on Plutus’ chin.

The force behind Rahmadat’s punch was so enormous that Plutus’ massive body momentarily levitated from the attack.

Seo Jun-Ho saw the ridiculous sight and quickly gave another order. “Skaya.”

“Yes.”

“Fire...”

Plutus was in a vulnerable state.

Skaya Killiland didn’t miss the opportunity and gathered as much magic as she could to fire another ray of destruction.

“Destruction Ray!”

A kaleidoscope of purple lights manifested from afar, and the lights were so bright that Plutus unknowingly turned toward it

[…ಉಌಧ೩.]

There was a flash as the beam of chaos arrived in front of Plutus’ nose in the proverbial blink of an eye, and the ray bore a hole in Plutus’ face.

Crash!

Plutus’ head was melted by the beam, and his huge body collapsed. The Players held their breaths and gulped. Plutus wasn’t moving after collapsing to the floor.

“...”

“...”

“I-is he dead?” someone muttered.

“Hey! Someone shut his mouth!”

“Don’t jinx it!”

There was a brief commotion, but everyone soon turned their attention to the System message that popped up in front of their eyes.

[Congratulations! Gatekeeper Plutus the Exiled has been defeated.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

[You have leveled up.]

…

[All stats increased by 8.]

[The tightly shut door opens.]

“So he’s dead for good...”

‘He’s capable of impersonating the System, but he can’t possibly fake the Players’ levels and stats.’

The Players’ confirmed Plutus’ death by checking their status windows.

“You were great. Thanks to you, the battle ended rather quickly.”

“I’m sure the Players still would have defeated Plutus somehow, even without me”

Of course, the number of casualties would be huge, and it would take them a long time.

“Great work, Skaya and Alba.”

“Yes, thank you!”

Seo Jun-Ho calmly took in everyone’s gaze that was filled with admiration toward him.

Afterward, he turned to look at what had been created next to Plutus’ corpse.

“...It looks similar, don’t you think?” he said.

“Yeah. It certainly looks similar.”

The portal emitting blue light resembled those things on Earth.

The only difference was that the portal in front of their eyes was unusually huge in size.

“He’s apparently a gatekeeper, so I think this is the gate.”

“...”

Gates were doors that appeared out of nowhere one day.

Seo Jun-Ho suddenly remembered how he kept on clearing Gates back then, even though he had no idea of the bigger picture behind those gates.

‘Does this mean that I’m getting closer?’

Seo Jun-Ho’s intuition was telling him that he was finally approaching the truth about why they had to fight and why the people precious to them had to die.