69novels Chapter 549
Chapter 549
The moment Tartarus activated, a terrifying pitch-black wormhole split open beside Su-ho.
It was filled with the aura of death, and at a glance alone, bleakness and unprecedented terror came surging out.
Su-ho had copied this from Typhon and made it his own.
Su-ho recalled the information on Tartarus.
[ Tartarus ]
Rank: S
# An abyss born from chaos and void.
# It is said to lie at the very bottom of the underworld, but in truth it lies even lower than the underworld, in the lowest place in the world.
# Summons a dimensional gate connected to Tartarus.
# The gate can only be opened by those who possess the qualifications. Therefore, one who possesses the qualifications can open the gate and come back out even from inside Tartarus.
Looking at the dimensional gate leading to Tartarus, Su-ho said,
“Gods are immortal. That’s why you couldn’t kill the Titans either and locked them up in Tartarus, right?”
Of course, by that logic, Typhon too was actually an existence that could not be killed.
According to the inherited myth, Zeus was unable to kill Typhon in the end as well, so he threw an island on top of it, crushed it underneath, and sealed it away.
But when Su-ho had run the raid, whether because of the system’s balance adjustment or not, oddly enough, he had been able to kill the bastard with Shadow Slash.
‘But starting with Ares, I never got a notification saying it had been killed.’
Even though he had clearly blown apart the body and, leaving only the head, thrown that severed head to Jack.
Same with Poseidon.
And Zeus just now had been the same. He had cut off the head, yet Zeus had not died either.
That was why he had brought out Tartarus.
Of course, he had not taken Tartarus from Typhon for a purpose like this.
Every skill Typhon possessed had been desirable, and if possible, they were all things he would have wanted to take.
But even so, he had to choose just one, and he had chosen Tartarus.
Because among the techniques Su-ho possessed, Tartarus was the only interdimensional skill with the same property as Subspace House.
‘Of course, the flaw with Tartarus is that I can’t monopolize it like I can Subspace House.’
Even so, even taking that flaw into account, Tartarus had been the best choice.
Because there was no telling how many more enemies he would meet in the future.
They would be stronger than Su-ho, and there might even be some he could not kill and would have to choose to flee from.
That was why he had chosen Tartarus.
At the very least, he had figured that even if he could not kill the other side, with Tartarus he would at least be able to separate them from himself for the moment.
Sure enough, a use for it had already appeared.
Su-ho picked up Zeus’s body and threw it into Tartarus.
“What are you doing right now?!”
Seeing his own body go into Tartarus, Zeus shouted in fury.
At that, Su-ho snorted.
“Can’t you tell by looking? You lot are immortal. So how am I supposed to kill you? Better to get you out of my sight. And who knows? Maybe when you get there, the guests who arrived before you will take care of killing you themselves.”
The guests who had arrived first.
He meant the Titans Zeus had imprisoned.
They too were immortal beings and could not be killed, so Zeus had locked them in Tartarus.
Su-ho smiled and said,
“Go feel what Gaia and the Titans felt. That’s why I’m sending you there.”
“No! No, you can’t!! Anything but Tartarus!!”
“You can.”
Su-ho grabbed Zeus by the hair and lifted up the severed head.
Then, like a baseball player throwing a ball, he hurled it powerfully into Tartarus.
After that, Poseidon too, Ares’s head too, and the other gods too, one after another, were thrown inside.
It was around the time he was about to shove in the last god.
“Ah!”
Suddenly Su-ho’s eyes widened.
Then he let out a sigh in a voice full of regret.
“I forgot to drain blood.”
More precisely, skill copy.
If they were gods from after the Gigantomachy, then their forms should be at the absolute peak by now, so even if he copied the same skills, Lightning Bolt and Earthquake Tsunami, they would be far stronger than the old versions he already had.
But the garbage truck had already left, and no matter how regrettable it was, he couldn’t very well dive into the dump after it.
- You should’ve looked things over more carefully then.
Jack teased him in circles.
At that, Su-ho snorted and shoved even the last god into Tartarus.
“What am I, a computer? Like I’m never supposed to make a single mistake.”
- What’s a computer?
“There’s something like that.”
- There you go again, saying things only you understand. But if you regretted it that much, why not at least drain blood from the last one? Why just send him off?
“Forget it. Once you button one wrong from the start, do you think matching the very last one now would somehow make it feel right?”
- You’re greedy.
“You need to be greedy if you want to win for sure later.”
It was the moment Jack nodded as though he agreed with those words.
[ You have succeeded in killing all the Olympian gods. ]
[ You have accomplished a truly great feat that no player has ever achieved. ]
[ Recognizing your supreme achievements, the system gifts you 30 bonus stat points. ]
[ You have succeeded in clearing the third special quest. ]
[ The fourth special quest has been generated. ]
A system notification.
It was the notification saying that by fulfilling all conditions, he had finally cleared the third special quest.
That was a relief.
The condition itself had been to kill the gods, and yet the system still recognized this kind of handling as valid.
But his pleasure lasted only a moment.
The moment he saw the notification, Su-ho’s brow narrowed.
‘The fourth special quest...’
There’s still more left?
Jesus, when the hell is this damn special quest ever going to end?
Shaking his head, Su-ho checked the quest details.
But when he checked them, Su-ho’s eyes widened slightly.
‘The fourth quest... has something to do with that guy?’
A development he had never expected at all.
When Su-ho let out a hollow laugh, Jack asked,
- What ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) is it, Master?
“The fourth special quest popped up, and it’s just something way too unexpected.”
- What is it?
“I’ll tell you in a bit. First I need to sort out what has to be sorted out.”
Only after Hero’s Destiny and the third special quest were both finished did the exit portal leading outside finally open.
Before that, Su-ho updated his status window first.
“Check status window.”
[ An Su-ho ]
Lv: 335
Class: Bloody Cardinal
Rank: Middle Player
Betting: ＜Umbra＞
Traits▲: ＜New Blood★＞＜Hercules＞＜King of a Ruined Nation＞＜Grid’s Partner＞＜Sun-Moon Body＞
Gigantic Strength (S): 33
True Demon (S): 331
Super Senses (S): 25
Command (N): 155
Bonus Stats: 30
Bonus stats were only 30 in total.
Those damned Olympus bastards were immortal, so he couldn’t kill them, which meant they gave no experience either.
As a result, the number of levels he gained was zero.
Couldn’t be helped.
Still, he ought to be grateful.
The condition had been killing them in the first place, and yet it had been counted as resolved just by sending them into Tartarus, hadn’t it?
Su-ho invested every single bonus stat he had obtained into True Demon.
After that, the next thing that stood out was that at last, the triangle mark beside Hercules had disappeared.
‘What does it matter? It’s not like there’s any special reward for it.’
Come to think of it, the Gigantomachy that had taken place during Hero’s Destiny had not been something created for the special quest that appeared later, but an event that had arisen from the Hercules trait itself.
That was why it was disappointing.
By order and by sequence, Hero’s Destiny came first, so if he had won the Gigantomachy as promised, then shouldn’t he be given a separate reward for that?
‘Something like Tartarus was a power I earned entirely with my own strength.’
But seeing that there was no reaction at all, it looked like it had to be one of two things.
Either the system bastard was wiping its mouth clean and pretending otherwise, or it was planning to mix it into the special quest reward and hand it over that way.
Even so, just in case, he raised his voice and lodged a protest anyway.
“Come on, isn’t this seriously too much? By order of sequence, Hero’s Destiny came first, so why am I not getting any reward related to this?”
Naturally, there was no response.
Yeah, figures.
With a face saying he had not expected anything anyway, Su-ho headed for the exit portal.
And the moment he was about to step his first foot into the exit portal.
Hwaaaaak!
Suddenly, from far away, he felt as though something was rapidly approaching, and instinctively turned his head in that direction.
At that instant, Su-ho’s vision went dark, then immediately returned to its proper colors.
When his sight came back, Su-ho realized that he was soaring high into the sky.
“Uh—?!”
It felt like riding a roller coaster shooting upward.
Su-ho’s body rose higher and higher into the sky, to the point of piercing through every layer of atmosphere, and before long, what seemed to be outer space began coming into view.
‘I’m leaving Earth?!’
Why all of a sudden?!
But his mouth would not open.
And around the time he truly began to think that his body was leaving into outer space, his vision darkened again.
A brief silence.
After some time of quiet had passed, Su-ho slowly opened his eyes.
It was dazzling.
A bright light.
By the time his eyes gradually adjusted to it, the very first thing he saw was an enormous horizon.
Brown earth.
And above it spread pitch-black darkness.
Between the two was a bright streak of light, as though drawn across with a white crayon.
‘Where... is this?’
Where is this?
I was definitely trying to go home.
It was then.
Shuaaa!
Above the horizon, across the black sky, bright lines suddenly began to be drawn.
What is that?
There was not just one line.
The lines that began to be drawn simultaneously in multiple places soon started forming a certain shape, and as Su-ho watched it, his eyes gradually widened.
‘That is...’
A familiar shape.
It was a man kneeling on one knee, holding a club in one hand and snakes in the other.
Even the physique was that of a muscular man, and the identity of that figure was none other than ‘Hercules.’
More precisely, it was the constellation Hercules.
His constellation was also called the Kneeling One, and according to the original myth, Zeus, honoring his achievements, raised Hercules into the sky as a constellation.
As Su-ho stood there with only his mouth hanging open at the sudden and mysterious situation, the constellation of Hercules was erased, and then a more direct and realistic human figure than before was drawn.
The face was depicted as faceless, with nothing there, but from the muscular physique and the lion-head helmet alone, anyone could tell at a glance that it was Hercules.
Before long, once Hercules drawn in streaks of light across the vast universe was completed, a system notification appeared before Su-ho’s eyes.
[ All conditions and qualifications have been fulfilled. ]
[ ??? accepts ■■■■■’s request. ]
[ ■■■■■ reveals his true name of his own accord. ]
[ Quasi-Throne Hercules descends. ]
Quasi-Throne Hercules!
The moment that notification appeared, the streaks of light that had been drawn across the universe began disappearing in reverse order, and soon afterward, a mass of light began gathering before Su-ho.
Like fireflies, they gathered upward starting from the soles of the feet, slowly shaping a human figure, and once the head too was finally completed, Su-ho was able to see clearly.
An existence he had encountered only through system notifications and quests all this time.
An existence with whom he had never even exchanged a single conversation, yet who had made him resolve the Twelve Labors that were his destiny, and even the Gigantomachy.
Hercules himself.
At last, Hercules in the flesh descended before Su-ho, radiating a majesty incomparable to the Olympian gods Su-ho had met until now.