Chapter 578
“Grrr….”
A deep groan rolled out of Zeus’s mouth.
He hadn’t died, but the attack had been so powerful that his whole body still trembled.
Even so, the Domain of Lightning rapidly knit his wounds back together.
“You’re… strong, I’ll give you that. On a human—no, even on a Major God’s level, you should’ve been laid out by now…”
So they weren’t kidding about infinite power.
Killing Zeus, who could wield the power of lightning, was no simple task.
He even recalled the nightmare of trading blows with this guy for ten straight days.
Kang Jinhyuk nocked another arrow.
He planned to attack the same way once more and finish him for good.
A sidelong glance.
Watching the constellation shift again, Zeus made up his mind.
He accepted the reality that things couldn’t go on like this.
“How humiliating it is… enough to die.”
He had never felt such degradation.
Which was why—
“I’ll make you pay dearly for forcing me to use this.”
[Zeus summons the ‘Crown of Swiftness’!]
Space warped, and an exceedingly thin, silver crown appeared.
No explanation was needed—Jinhyuk knew exactly what it was.
He looked at the crown with a mixture of tension and anticipation.
There were three things he absolutely had to take from Zeus.
First, control over Olympus’s floors.
Second, the Unique Holy Spear ‘Thunder God’ he possessed.
And last, the ‘crown,’ a key to reaching the 50th floor and one of the Tower’s most important sacred relics.
‘So you finally brought it out…’
The Crown of Swiftness was a sacred relic that pushed speed and agility to their limits.
For an offense-specialist like Zeus, it maximized his strengths.
Yet Zeus disliked using it.
He believed his true power alone should suffice; he didn’t want help from auxiliary gear.
The fact that he’d donned it meant his fury had surpassed his pride.
Vrrrrm!
The air changed the moment the crown touched his head.
Like the Crown of Tyranny, ominous ripples spread outward.
Zeus, already overwhelming by default, had sprouted wings.
From here on out, Jinhyuk would have to focus everything.
Clack!
He drew his lightest weapons—two daggers.
Dark crimson aura surged along each blade.
And then—
Pop!
Zeus vanished from sight.
Left…
No, right.
Jinhyuk crossed his blades to defend, but nothing struck from the right.
Instead, a heavy pain bloomed from a completely unexpected angle.
Thud-thud!
His body was flung forward.
A lightning-laced fist had smashed into his spine.
RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE… KRAK-KRAK!
He tumbled for dozens of meters before he managed to steady himself.
“Urk!”
He sprang up and reset his stance.
Zeus moved so fast that even his afterimages lingered for seconds.
[The Twelve Labors – ‘Storm Volley’ is activated!]
Clones born of Lingering Moonlight loosed arrows all at once.
At the same time, countless meteors fell from the constellation in the night sky.
But—
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK!
This time, the situation was reversed.
No matter how many arrows he poured out, they didn’t so much as graze Zeus.
Leaving afterimage upon afterimage, Zeus found Jinhyuk’s flank.
…Already!?
Even the daggers couldn’t keep pace—Zeus’s lightning was still half a beat ahead.
If he let this hit again, the damage would be too great.
“Kh!”
Jinhyuk triggered ‘High-Speed Sword’ and deflected the lightning by a hair’s breadth.
KWAANG!
A massive flash erupted again.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
His blades moved in time with spears formed of Astrape.
At the same time—
[Unique Holy Spear – ‘Eight Swamps’ is activated!]
Pools of venom stained the area green.
A virulent poison that burned flesh on contact.
But no matter how potent the toxin, if it never touched him, it was useless.
“Kwahaha! Not all crowns are the same! Depending on the owner—and the owner’s caliber—the power displayed can be utterly different!”
Zeus, brimming with confidence, pushed his speed even further.
He had reason to boast.
It had been a long time since Jinhyuk had been beaten up like this.
A third of his clones had already dissipated, and the Zodiac that sustained the grand barrier was cracked all over.
His mana and stamina drain exceeded expectations.
KWA-BOOM!
Jinhyuk’s gut flipped again.
It felt like the lightning was shredding his internal organs.
Yet—
Scrape!
His dagger tip also skimmed Zeus’s armor.
He was getting used to it, bit by bit.
Just a few more exchanges, and he could catch up to the sense of speed.
“Hm!?”
Zeus’s eyes widened.
His foe shouldn’t even be able to see his shadow… and yet, with each exchange, Jinhyuk was catching up to his movements.
‘Is this something you can just get used to?’
Ridiculous.
When he acquired the Crown of Swiftness, he had needed to mobilize all of Olympus’s Major Gods and barely secured it.
Even then, it had taken brute luck and force; he had never fully read an opponent’s moves.
He refused to accept it.
“Impossible. There’s no way the likes of you… could do what even I could not!”
[Thunder God – ‘Lightning Dash’ is activated!]
Zeus’s body became a bolt of lightning.
Breaking the sound barrier, he streaked around Jinhyuk in every direction, readying a final blow.
—
‘Just as expected.’
He was sure a taunt would force Zeus to use his top speed.
They’d both gone beyond the range of prediction by now…
…and that went for his opponent too.
Zeus wouldn’t be fully accustomed to the Crown of Swiftness.
Slash.
With each blink of light, a new wound opened on Jinhyuk.
It was fine.
They were mere cuts.
And thanks to ‘Nemesis,’ injuries of this degree posed no hindrance to battle.
Jinhyuk watched for the opening with a razor’s patience amid the streams of blood.
Now!
He gathered all the mana in his body to a single point.
“You think I’d fall for that!”
Zeus shifted to the narrowest space where the attack wouldn’t reach.
But what followed wasn’t at all what Zeus expected.
KWAANG!
Jinhyuk struck the ground—not Zeus.
[Unique Ability ‘Earthquake’ is activated!]
[Glacial Sculpting ‘Ice Wall’ is activated!]
The ground split like a turtle’s shell.
From the cracks, ice dust geysered upward.
It stole both balance and speed at once.
Of course—
A trick like this could at most shave a few percent off his original speed.
“Graaah! You dare mock me to the end!”
Zeus leapt, lightning in both hands.
But—
‘That’s more than enough.’
Just a few percent—
With a speed he already wasn’t fully used to, he’d lose what little feel he’d found.
Jinhyuk counted the timing in his head.
Exactly 0.068 seconds.
The target was the heart.
Before Zeus could even feel lightning touch Jinhyuk’s chest, the daggers crossed left and right.
Thud!
Slice!
Two different wet sounds rang out.
—
A spot just centimeters off-center from the heart.
Zeus’s fist had punched through Jinhyuk’s body and burst out the other side.
Zeus, in turn, had a deep gash across his nape, blood fountaining out.
“Khak… hak…”
Zeus wheezed.
Arms and legs trembling.
He’d taken a mortal wound—moving properly was hard.
“Fool… did you choose… to die together?”
Struck in Thunder God form, Jinhyuk shouldn’t be fine either.
In fact, the burned wound wasn’t regenerating.
Jinhyuk spat out the blood filling his mouth.
Damn it.
To be honest, it hurt like hell.
“Sure, I’ll probably die too.”
Not even Gabriel could save him—he was long past a healer’s reach.
But—
“I don’t really care. As long as I don’t die instantly.”
From the start, the objective was singular.
Guard the heart and head while luring Zeus in.
If he could force a mutual kill scenario, victory afterward was as good as assured.
Moments later, his ragged breathing stopped.
Jinhyuk collapsed on the spot.
Thud!
The instant his cold body hit the ground—
[Blessing of the Stars: Resurrection conditions met.]
The broken consciousness reconnected.
As expected, the wounds Zeus had inflicted vanished as if they’d been a lie.
Pat, pat.
Dusting off the dirt, Jinhyuk quipped nonchalantly,
“Sorry I’m the only one back to full strength.”
Truly, it felt downright broken.
“Mon…ster…”
Zeus still panted, recovering at a glacial pace.
“You’re the monster. Your neck’s halfway off and you’re still alive.”
“Are you… satisfied winning… in such a cowardly way? If we’d fought fair… the victory was mine.”
“I prefer being a cowardly survivor to an honorable corpse. In the Tower of Trials, the strong aren’t the strong—those who survive are.”
Jinhyuk pulled Balmung from the ground.
Tap.
The blade touched Zeus’s nape.
Balmung, steeped in ‘Grave of Swords’ and ‘Heaven-Annihilating Myriad Poisons,’ sang a terrifying resonance.
Zeus stared Jinhyuk down.
Unlike other foes, he didn’t beg for his life.
As the head of a mythology, he would keep his last shred of pride.
There was no point in disgracing such an enemy.
He’d already achieved everything he wanted.
[Copy Condition: To copy the abilities of Zeus, Olympus’s highest Major God, you must force him to use every supreme measure he has, then defeat him. If you use a non-conductive material, copying the Unique Holy Spear will be restricted.]
Jinhyuk looked at ‘Thunder God’ stored in ‘Memory of the World.’
[Unique Holy Spear – ‘Thunder God’]
Acquisition Difficulty: Unmeasurable
Allows you to shroud your body in lightning and employ all forms of lightning, including Astrape.
A top-tier Unique Holy Spear that enables offense and defense simultaneously.
He had gained so much waging war against Olympus.
Jinhyuk swung in a single, clean stroke.
Slice!
A neat, unadorned cut.
Zeus’s head fell.
And with that, the curtain fell on the long, long war of myth.
At the same time—
Ding! Ding! Ding!
A flood of status windows filled his vision.
Most were level-up messages.
A few were Zeus’s sacred relics and special items.
[You have obtained the ‘Crown of Swiftness’.]
[Player Kang Jinhyuk now possesses 2 crowns.]
[Veteran Corporation now possesses 3 crowns.]
[At an unbelievable feat, everyone in the Tower is stunned.]
[A catalyst has been secured that allows the ‘Primordial Beings’ to move.]
But none of that drew his eye the most.
[You have obtained …… .]
‘This drops here?’
What emerged from his arms was something he could hardly believe, even as he held it.