Chapter 138

Chapter 138: Large-Scale Raid - (7)

The activation preparation began.

He grabbed the handle connected to the Holy Spirit’s Lighthouse hidden underground.

Do Kyungsoo called this the Hand of Death. The moment you grabbed it, it would insanely drain your life force.

“Junhyuk, supply the current through the red hole below. Gahee, you handle the healing.”

“Got it.”

“Confirmed.”

“Gahee, you might see something unpleasant through me. You don’t have to look.”

“It’s fine. I’m good with gruesome stuff.”

“It probably won’t be that kind of thing. Let’s begin right away. Time is gold if we want to support the main force!”

Crunch!

Sanghyun immediately grabbed the handle.

Kuwaaaa!

At the same time, a nightmarish scene unfolded.

Innocent people were being pushed alive into a massive pit and buried.

Most of the undead forming this dungeon were likely created for similar reasons.

People who died with unresolved resentment.

Their bodies alone had been revived, now fighting hard as someone’s puppets.

‘What kind of pressure do they think this will bring?’

Sanghyun sneered.

The sight of people being buried alive, dying in screams. Bodies writhing in pain.

He saw everything clearly, yet strangely, he felt nothing. Rather, he felt indifferent.

It was the feeling of emotional erosion.

Though he was now living in his younger body due to regression, his mind had passed somewhere beyond his fifties.

‘Take my will, my passion, and my burning life force. And bring holy light upon this dungeon.’

He gripped the handle tighter.

From this point on, it was a matter of whether he could endure or not.

He was confident he could. All he needed was time.

* * *

Meanwhile.

‘To be unfazed while watching people being crushed, torn apart, and dying—does that mean he’s been through that much?’

Lee Gahee was surprised at Sanghyun, who stayed calm and focused despite the horrifying scenes.

Even the brutal deaths of monsters in dungeons didn’t compare to what was unfolding now.

There was one reason she could see exactly what Sanghyun was seeing.

To heal him intensively, she had both her hands placed on his back.

Of course, she wasn’t being swept up by the nightmares or emotions, and unlike Sanghyun, she could observe objectively.

But even just watching it was enough to make her mind reel from the shock.

In the end, she closed her eyes.

‘Unless you’re totally detached from everything, not even a seasoned player could handle this weight easily.’

That’s what Gahee thought.

What Sanghyun had been enduring for over ten minutes now was the sight of people dying in all kinds of horrific ways.

There were even grotesque scenes of beasts devouring the living.

Some were torn apart while still alive, with the creatures cackling as they chewed the flesh.

In fact, what shocked her wasn’t just Sanghyun’s detached demeanor.

‘Is his stamina really that high? Judging from the healing he’s received, his current health must be close to a thousand.’

Just like earlier, once someone’s health bar was full, a healer’s spell would stop healing.

It was like pouring water into a full cup—it would just overflow.

That’s why healers could estimate a person’s total health through the healing process.

But something felt off.

Reverse-calculating from the healing she’d poured in, Sanghyun’s health was shockingly high.

Even taking the margin of error into account, it was definitely over 850.

‘If he’s a strength-focused swordsman, even with expensive Artifact setups, it’d be hard to go over 500.’

Her guess was accurate, based on data maintained by the Player Union. And it was correct.

‘Even a defense- and stamina-specialized swordsman would need to be around level 250 to reach 850 HP.’

If he were a defensive type like Jo Jinho, he’d need to be at least level 250.

But as she had already seen, Sanghyun wasn’t defense-oriented. He leaned heavily into offense.

That made him essentially a ‘strength swordsman’, but his absurdly high stamina estimate was deeply contradictory.

‘I don’t think he has a skill-stealing or duplicating ability, like I once guessed… This is something else entirely.’

Gahee’s gaze wavered.

Though she prided herself on collecting data on many players while working in the scouting team—

Sanghyun couldn’t be categorized into any known classification. The depth of his ability, his limits—none could be predicted.

‘What are you? What kind of power do you have that none of my predictions are right?’

Gahee spoke silently in her mind as she looked at Sanghyun’s back, still focused.

Seeing his back, which somehow looked even broader than usual, made her unconsciously shrink back.

“Focus more!”

Sanghyun shouted.

At his voice, both Gahee and Jung Junhyuk, who had been in a concentrated state, re-focused and summoned their strength.

Rumble… Rumble…

The lighthouse, which hadn’t moved a bit until now, finally began to stir. A change had begun!

* * *

Five minutes later.

Kuwaaaa!

“What was that sound?”

“Where is it coming from? An explosion?”

Hearing the roar and feeling the ground shake from the northeast, Do Kyungsoo whipped his head around.

But what he saw didn’t match his expectations—it was a structure rising from the southwest side of the imperial palace.

“Shihu, what is that?”

“I don’t know either.”

“Yeah. I think this is the first time I’ve seen it.”

What emerged was a structure that closely resembled a lighthouse.

They had entered the imperial palace multiple times during previous large-scale raids.

But during internal explorations, they had never seen anything resembling a lighthouse.

And this wasn’t an island or coastline where a lighthouse might reasonably exist, so no one had expected it.

Then—

Shhhhhh!

The dull, gray structure suddenly began to emit a burst of light.

And it wasn’t just any light.

Even from a great distance, both Do Kyungsoo and Choi Shihu could feel its warmth and divine energy.

Buzz! Buzz!

At the same time, the lighthouse began to rotate, casting its radiant beam in all directions.

From that moment, a massive upheaval began—one that shocked even Do Kyungsoo and Choi Shihu.

The undead exposed to the holy light emitted by the Holy Spirit’s Lighthouse began to melt down.

At least the Frozen Mages and mid-to-upper class undead monsters managed to endure, albeit weakened.

But the lowest-level creatures like ghouls and mummies disintegrated like scraps of paper the moment they faced the light head-on.

“There was such a destructive method of attack? Where in the dungeon? How?”

Do Kyungsoo, who rarely spoke fast, was so flustered that his words poured out like rapid-fire.

This wasn’t just a light meant to instill fear in the undead army.

It annihilated the weak outright!

Even those who weren’t instantly destroyed were placed under a continuous debuff of “weakening.”

Moreover, because the intense light rotated and shined over the entire army, no one was exempt.

On the other hand, Do Kyungsoo’s Sword Demon–Sword God team, who received the holy light, gained a buff.

It was a buff that amplified damage to undead by 50%.

With relative debuffs and buffs combined, the difference felt in combat became more than double the previous intensity.

Screeeeech!

All over, large demonic beasts and Frozen Mages were dying.

The Sword Demon–Sword God team had many members specializing in abnormal status effects, making the assault easier.

And now with the added power of the lighthouse, the undead army had no chance of enduring.

“Wait, why is Shin Sanghyun over there?”

Then, Do Kyungsoo was shocked to see Sanghyun standing confidently next to the lighthouse. He thought he was seeing things.

“Don’t tell me Shin Sanghyun activated that lighthouse? He knew the route?”

“How would I know? Shin Sanghyun had information we didn’t have from the beginning.”

“Wow, this is going to be a major turning point in this raid. This doesn’t just make Phase 1 easier—we’ll breeze through Phase 2 too.”

“Exactly. We’ve always suffered during the brutal skirmishes of Phase 2.”

Do Kyungsoo turned his gaze toward the area around the imperial palace, now thoroughly bathed in the lighthouse’s light.

This was the dungeon’s entry point.

As they advanced toward the palace, the battle against larger beasts would unfold.

The Sword Demon–Sword God team referred to the opening battle as Phase 1, and the battles near the palace as Phase 2.

Starting with grotesque demonic beasts like Abominations, all sorts of large beasts appeared during Phase 2.

It was the trickiest part of the dungeon, and a place that always left them on edge.

Screeeeech! Groooaaar!

But today’s battlefield was different.

The lighthouse light, adjusting angles up, down, left, and right, was evenly shining over all areas, tormenting the beasts there too.

The biggest issue was that the undead army had no flying monsters—meaning they couldn’t touch the lighthouse.

“What have you done, Shin Sanghyun? I told you to be creative, but I didn’t think you’d create a whole situation.”

Do Kyungsoo’s eyes locked directly on Sanghyun, standing beside the lighthouse.

Their eyes met, and Sanghyun smiled brightly and waved with both hands.

“Haha. I thought I was already giving him exaggerated praise with a bit of personal bias… but even that was an understatement.”

Do Kyungsoo laughed heartily.

He didn’t even want to ask how Sanghyun had known about the lighthouse or activated it.

Every dungeon was a battle of information.

If Sanghyun had knowledge that no one else did, then its value and rarity deserved to be respected.

Of course, he might learn the process from Sanghyun’s teammates later.

But he didn’t want to ask first. Alternatively, he could just pay fairly and “buy” the information.

“This raid, we’ll definitely be able to push through to Phase 3.”

“Right. It feels like our entire team owes Shin Sanghyun a huge debt.”

“To repay it, we’ve got to fight even harder.”

“Exactly. Let’s go!”

The battlefield, completely transformed thanks to Sanghyun.

With the lighthouse’s buff at their backs, the Sword Demon–Sword God team charged into the chaos.

At the same time, near the Holy Spirit’s Lighthouse—

“Let’s join them. We can’t miss out now that it’s going to be an EXP feast. Let’s run!”

“Sounds good!”

“Let’s go right away!”

Sanghyun’s party near the lighthouse had also finished preparations to return to the front lines.

The monsters had been severely weakened.

Especially the mid-boss monsters!

Sanghyun had no intention of giving up on the ones that dropped Unique-grade Artifacts with certainty.

He didn’t care about the rest, but as for the mid-bosses, he planned to defeat them with his own hands.

Retracing the path they had come, Sanghyun examined a new title that had been granted to him.

It was awarded due to the mass slaughter of thousands of ghouls during the lighthouse activation.

It was a title he had anticipated in advance, based on the recipe he knew before entering this dungeon.

And that title was—

A rare S-grade title.