Leveling Up Alone

Anti-Poison was a low-ranking holy spell that was extremely effective against poisons, and it instantly neutralized the poison in Tia’s webs.

‘Tsk!’ Tia clicked her tongue.

[Where… are you going…?]

[Divine Smite!]

Bam!

“Kyah!”

Five of the twenty undead clergymen conjured a triangular magic array and attempted to seal Tia.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, you dirty maggots?” Han-Yeol smacked the undead clergyman closest to him with his elbow and sent it flying.

Bam!

However, another undead clergyman grabbed his ankle and refused to let go.

Woooong!

[O, heed my request! Take my life and take my enemy’s movement! Divine Sacrifice!]

Kwachik!

“Argh!”

The undead clergyman exploited the lapse in Han-Yeol’s concentration and cast sstrange spell to root him to the ground.

“Damn it!”

[Kill the intruder!]

Eight undead clergymen raised their blunt weapons and rushed at Han-Yeol. They did possess the ability to attack from a distance, but their close-range attacks were much stronger, so they decided to fight melee this time.

The intruder was nothing but an insignificant creature to them, but they did not make the mistake of underestimating the creature.

Han-Yeol still could not move after Divine Sacrifice rooted him down, and he was now a sitting duck against the incoming undead clergymen.

[I will take care of this, Han-Yeol-nim.]

Han-Yeol was surprised to hear Karvis suddenly intervene. ‘You will?’

[Yes, I will use this skill.]

‘That one?’

[Die, intruder! Accept your divine punishment!]

The undead clergymen were going to kill the intruder and go back to being dormant, just as they had been doing all this time. This was the fate they had been cursed with, and nobody could tell how long they were supposed to be trapped.

Chwak!

They raised their weapons above their heads to deliver the finishing blow, but they could not swing it down. Instead, they felt a sharp sensation radiating from their abdomen.

[W-What…?]

They looked down and saw a red tentacle penetrating through their abdomen.

[H-How did you? Divine Sacrifice should have prevented you from moving.]

One of the undead clergymen tried to ask Han-Yeol, but there was no way he was going to respond, as neither he nor Stewart could understand them. Strangely enough, telepathy did not work on these undead for sreason.

Thud!

The undead clergyman did not receive any response until it succumbed to the wound that Karvis inflicted on it.

Pshwaaak!

Karvis pulled the Blood Leg out from the undead monsters’ bodies and left behind a large gaping hole on their abdomens.

“Phew! I thought I was a goner. Thanks, Karvis.”

[I only did my job, Han-Yeol-nim.]

Han-Yeol let out a sigh of relief and thanked Karvis. He indeed had been in a dangerous spot a while ago, but he managed to emerge unscathed thanks to his Ego system’s quick thinking.

[Blood Strengthening can render you immune to status ailments.]

‘Oh? As expected, you’re the best, Karvis!’

[It is my duty to assist you, so please do not mention it.]

‘Yeah, but do you know how cool you sound right now?’

[I am always cool. What are you talking about?]

‘Haha!’

Karvis’ sense of humor seemed to be improving by the day.

“Kyah!”

Han-Yeol was leisurely chatting with Karvis when Tia’s scream grabbed his attention.

‘Oh, right! We don’t have tto sit around and chat!’

He completely forgot about Tia after getting caught off guard by the undead clergyman’s strange skill. Tia’s situation was quite dire, and the undead clergymen seemed to be casting ssort of strange spell on her.

“Kieeeeek!” Mavros cried out and tried to help.

However, he was caught by the light trap set up by the undead clergymen.

The strange thing about these undead clergymen was the fact that they were not that strong but they were quite tricky to deal with due to the numerous strange spells they used.

The fact that this was Han-Yeol’s first tfighting against them and Tia needing urgent help made it difficult for him and his party members to accurately judge the situation with a level head.

Ironically, Han-Yeol was more than capable of quickly resolving this situation as long as he kept his cool.

“Kue… Kuekeee!” Tia started letting out unintelligible sounds.

Han-Yeol rushed to help her, but the undead clergymen continued to block his path.

“Tia!”

Bzzt! Bzzt!

The undead clergymen’s holy property skills were extremely effective against Tia, who was a monster.

‘Damn it!’ Han-Yeol gritted his teeth out of frustration. He wanted to help her, but the undead clergymen continued to cast all sorts of weird spells to hamper his movement.

‘What should I do?’

The main problem right now was not the movement-impeding skills that the undead clergymen used but Han-Yeol’s failure to keep his cool and think rationally.

‘Argh…’

Han-Yeol looked at Stewart, but he dealing with his own problems too. His powers were sealed, so he was unable to drive back the undead clergymen.

‘This is starting to annoy me,’ Stewart thought.

It was then that something surprising happened.

[You insignificant fools dare to—!]

Krwaaaang!

Tia suddenly stopped wriggling in pain and unleashed a powerful wave of dark mana all over the place. Then, she released herself from the triangular bind, and her dark mana devoured the holy mana of the undead clergymen.

“T-Tia?” Han-Yeol called out.

However, Tia looked entirely different from her original form.

Ding!

[Danger! The shock Tia received has caused her to lose her consciousness and go on a rampage!]

[Tia’s skill Gigantify (D) has forcefully been activated!]

[Tia has used Rampage (M)!]

[A powerful surge of mana is trying to destroy the dungeon.]

[The entire dungeon will be destroyed if you fail to stop or calm her down!]

[You will never be able to leave this island if this dungeon is destroyed.]

Tia was no longer the beautiful Arachnid that Han-Yeol once knew.

“Is that the real appearance of the Arachnids…?” Han-Yeol muttered.

Tia was no longer half-human and half-spider. The black mana she unleashed changed her appearance, and she looked one hundred percent like a monster now.

‘It’s good that Tia is safe, but the problem is…’

She was safe, but everyone else was now in danger.

Krwaaaah! Bam! Bam! Kwachik!

The undead clergymen could no longer contain Tia after she transformed into a gigantic monster and rampaged. An undead clergyman's body would split in half whenever Tia swung her gigantic spider leg, instantly reducing their number from twenty to eight.

[M-Monster…!]

[We can’t offer that monster as a sacrifice!]

[Annihilate that thing!]

The undead clergymen decided to give up on offering Tia as a sacrifice and chose to kill her instead.

Woooong!

[O, Great and Benevolent One! We offer our lives to you! Smite this corrupted creature and banish it to the abyss!]

The eight remaining undead clergymen used a more advanced version of Divine Sacrifice, which was the Song of Great Sacrifice.

The Song of Great Sacrifice could only be used when five or more clergymen offered their lives to their god. In return, a holy offensive skill would be activated to deal damage ten times the value of the lives sacrificed.

[Die! Monster!]

[Dieeee!]

The eight undead clergymen turned into dust, and their mana was amplified ten times before they shot toward Tia.

Tia might be extremely powerful after turning into a monster, but being exposed to such an amount of holy property mana was bound to cause her agonizing pain.

“Those damn rotting corpses are really causing all sorts of troubles!”

Han-Yeol was able to freely move now after the undead clergymen were no longer impairing his movement, and he immediately stood between the Song of Great Sacrifice and Tia.

“Kieeeek!” Mavros cried out and flew beside him.

“Good! Now it’s tfor Force Shie—”

Han-Yeol was about to use the combination of Force Shield and Mana Absorption to absorb the Song of Great Sacrifice. Yes, it was an extremely powerful attack, but he was confident he could absorb it without any problem. After all, the amount of mana the attack contained was just equivalent to eighty Master-Rank Hunters.

Whoosh!

“Kyuing!”

‘Huh?’

Unfortunately, something he did not expect happened.

“Kieeeeek!”

White Dragon threw herself onto the incoming Song of Great Sacrifice.

“H-Hey! White Dragon!” Han-Yeol shouted frantically.

‘Damn it! What’s wrong with her?’ He was about to use Psychokinesis to drag her out of the way, but then he stopped at the last second.

‘She must have a good reason for suddenly doing something like that, right?’

Baaaam!

The Song of Great Sacrifice crashed into White Dragon.

Shwaaaa!

‘Huh?’

Han-Yeol expected an explosion to occur, but no such thing happened. Instead, White Dragon absorbed the Song of Great Sacrifice as if she was a black hole, and it took less than a second for her to absorb every single bit of the holy mana.

“Haha… I wonder what those undead would say if they saw this…”

“Kyuing!” White Dragon cried out in joy and happily flapped in the air after absorbing the holy mana.

[Kyaaaaah!]

“Oh, right! I forgot again!”

“Kyuuu!”

Han-Yeol looked at Tia and then immediately turned to warn White Dragon, but she had already flown to an aperture in the wall and hid in it.

All of the undead clergymen were dead, but Tia was now an even bigger problem compared to them. Not only was she completely a monster, but she was also a gigantic monster going on a rampage, and she could potentially bring the entire dungeon down sooner or later.

“Ughh, what am I supposed to do…?” Han-Yeol grumbled.

“I think killing her is the easiest way to resolve this,” Stewart said nonchalantly after walking up beside him.

Han-Yeol glared at him and retorted, “Yeah, but I’ll kill you first. Are you okay with that?”

“I am just saying that is our easiest option,” Stewart said with a shrug.

Han-Yeol shook his head, then tried to reason with the monster. “Hey, Tia. Can you calm down?”

[I’m going to kill you all!]

However, she replied by swinging her leg, which was reinforced with her tough carapace which was known to be one of the toughest materials even in the demon world.

The alert that popped up in front of Han-Yeol’s eyes a while ago explained it perfectly. Tia was now a monster and she was currently out of control. Calming her down through normal means was going to be impossible.

Unfortunately, Han-Yeol did not have the luxury of tto find a way to calm her down, as this entire place would collapse if she continued to go on a rampage with her gigantic size.

Han-Yeol was not worried about whatever this dungeon was, but the fact that they would be trapped on this island forever and Tia would still die in the end weighed heavily on his mind.

“Oh, right… You are aware that status ailment skills such as stun, paralyze, sleep, or any other sort do not work on Master-Rank monsters on a rampage right?”

“I-I know!”

Han-Yeol was not sure if Stewart was enacting his petty revenge right now or something, but he was definitely causing more headaches for Han-Yeol rather than helping.

‘That’s why I wanted to learn Rampage too before I got Blood Strengthening!’

Han-Yeol was wary of being chained down by status ailment skills, so he desperately wanted a skill that he could use to get himself out of a pinch. Thankfully, Blood Strengthening rendered him immune to status ailments even though it was not Master-Rank yet.

‘I can’t use Restore on her either…’

He knew that using Restore on her when she had fully turned into a monster would be equivalent to killing her.

‘I’m running out of time! I’ll have to tire her out first while coming up with a plan!’

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