Martial Arts Returnee’s Game Broadcast

Chapter 248

• The Pillar of Ascension did something it should never have done—"living."
• That was a target you could attack??
• The devs hid this and hoped someone would break it? Seriously?
• The devs are really crazy, lol.
• You're telling me to fight a pillar that supports an Ascension District over a 10km radius? Can a sword even stick into it?

The viewers were in shock over the identity of this unexpected hidden raid boss.
Even Speedmaster was equally shocked.

"Wow. I thought I found the Collective of Despair, thinking I had faced the hardest challenge, but there’s actually a hidden raid boss on top of that?"

Whether it could be defeated or not was secondary. The mere existence of such an absurdly massive pillar as a raid target was unimaginable.

<Lee Hye-Chan has donated 10,000 Won!>
Here we are at the tourist attraction, the Pillar of Ascension. And now, from here, it’s going to rise and attack you all.

• Lol
• What is this, a horror movie? Haha
• Look at that hand coming out of the pillar!
• This is like Godzilla Boogeyman, isn't it?
• It’s real
• Boogeyman hiding in a pillar instead of a wardrobe, wow

With great scale inevitably comes grandeur.
Mountains instill strength in a man simply by existing, and massive beasts evoke awe just by being.
But a great natural disaster doesn’t inspire courage or reverence.
It only brings fear and despair.
The massive arms, the size of buildings, shattered any remaining resolve before they even moved. Monsters in their path simply stood frozen in despair.

"I wanted to go to Daoist Paradise..."
"Oh my god..."

The hard-built homes, the wealth accumulated to pass through the door, the monsters’ existence—all were crushed and torn apart in an instant.
Only the Silent Swordsman and Boogeyman were unaffected by the disaster, climbing up the arm of the Pillar.

Swish

Swiftly advancing like the wind.
Wherever the Silent Swordsman stepped, red petals scattered like plum blossoms.
Imprints of the Taegeuk, spirals, eight trigrams, and magic circles appeared as scars.
As one gigantic arm turned into a rag, Boogeyman’s hand tore through the wound.

<Boogeyman> <Boogeyman’s Dark Power> <Soul-Eagle Claw Control (?????)>

Like a hawk hunting prey, the vicious gestures of his martial arts reached deep into the bones hidden under the flesh.

Chiiiiick!

The attack was successful.
But inside the arm, poison flowed like blood.
The strength of the muscles and bones, necessary to support its enlarged body, was no ordinary thing.

'Is my strength not enough?'

Blocking the poison and tearing through hardened muscle, trying to pull out bones, Boogeyman’s strength was consumed in the process.
Even breaking a single arm seemed harder than breaking a mountain. It drained the challenger’s strength just to face one arm.

'Is this the result of recklessly absorbing and devouring everything just to support the massive Daoist Paradise?'

Boogeyman saw the hidden weakness behind the scale and grandeur.
The evolutionary direction common to all monsters.
The direction of the Pillar of Ascension was one that could support and uphold Daoist Paradise, but that direction was grand enough to be unsustainable.

Monsters, unlike those who change in pursuit of certain emotions, achievements, and worldly desires, followed a different kind of growth.
Their growth was not aimed at avoiding danger or deceiving enemies. It was about becoming nature itself.
There was no will, only an extreme self-sacrifice that followed the will of the one who controlled them.

‘I can't avoid hating the Great Demon for this.’

"How dare you defile my body like this..."

Boogeyman’s aura rising from his wardrobe now had to be called dark martial arts.
The instincts of the Murder Demon turned into a dense killing intent.
As hatred and anger deepened, the power and techniques he’d seen during his journey with the Silent Swordsman fused together.
The Silent Swordsman had mastered the art of the sword, while Boogeyman was a master of the flying soul claw technique.

‘Silent Swordsman. Before meeting you, my strength was just about swinging hard.’

Using more energy and releasing it a little faster.
A variation of strong and swift attacks.
It was only the beginning.

'But she was different. No, only she was different.'

She had perfected the beauty of strength derived from intricate rules and principles.
Exploring destiny and logic, she strengthened her power through dangerous counterforces that defied the natural order.

Her defense skills spread like a barrier, blocking everything.
On top of that, she added more power flowing outward, taking on the risk of temporarily slowing her body’s metabolism.

Thousands of retaliations, engraving countless ways of attack.
In a split second, twisting blood vessels leading to the brain, she added speed and force to her unconscious reactions.

Small mistakes could lead to devastating damage.
It was the art of martial arts that could be called taboo.
Powerful magic techniques created to defeat opponents beyond the original level.

‘It was as if this power was prepared just for me.’

The offspring of the Demon King sought meaningless affection from her.
Compared to him, the King of the Abyss was preferable.
He had surrendered his life and given everything to the principles of magic.
But Boogeyman was different.
He had long surpassed that stage.
He knew he had already achieved something high.
And the result was the scene unfolding before him.

Fwoooosh!
Grrrroooaaar...

Poisonous blood poured down like a waterfall from the massive arm’s body.
The streets, destroyed by the battle, echoed with the screams of monsters, dissolving in the toxic blood.
The enormous hand also screamed.
The giant mouth on its palm howled in pain.
Its organs, developed only for devouring, spilled blood mixed with reckless power.

Crash! Rumbling...

Even as one arm was defeated, dozens more enormous arms came pouring out.
If they were defeated with great effort, it would have been a scene of despair, and it was the moment when many experienced players, like Speedmaster, would have given up.
But the Silent Swordsman and Boogeyman were different.
To them, it was just a small fraction of the challenge.
What was the problem with that?

'Just like monsters have a direction for growth, martial arts also have a way of being implemented.'

Most martial arts were developed to fight humans, but as martial artists' levels grew, it evolved to fight superhumans.
There were those who pursued the freedom of the sword, as fluid as drifting clouds in the sky, and those who dreamed of techniques that rendered resistance meaningless, like a pouring rain.
The 24 Legendary Masters of the Great War.
Shin Geomilhu, Ha Eung Eung.
She had clashed her martial arts against those who had honed their skills to the highest levels.
Who had the more practical potential?
Who had the greater advantage?
Who advanced to the deepest, most distant realm?
It was through this process of competition that she realized the potential she had yet to explore.
She remembered the martial arts principles she hadn’t learned and embraced all of them.
And those possibilities, absorbed into her, were now recreated in Half-Demon Valley, and Boogeyman saw them.

'If a human can unleash such potential, why can’t I, a being who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the Great Demon, reach the ultimate?'

As the pattern changed, the arms that had risen high came crashing down.
The city, crushed and crumpled, collapsed under the impact, and the earth itself broke apart, burying nearby areas in a volcanic eruption of dirt.
Disaster.
The true form of the Lower District, which the monsters had ignored and shunned, devoured their deaths and despair, and the Collective of Despair declared the city’s end.
Among the monsters being swept away like ants, the only beings capable of standing against it were the Silent Swordsman’s sword and Boogeyman’s hands.

Ha Eung Eung filled her sword with the sea.
A sea that receives and absorbs any attack, the source of life itself.
Though the defense is endless, when the sea rages, the whole world trembles in fear.
Like a great ocean rising to close the gates of the sky, sweeping away the traces of civilization in an instant, the scenes once seen in disaster movies became a deep symbol in her heart, pointing toward the destination she aimed for.
She was ready to unfold it.

Sword Sea.

A sea of sword strikes formed with a single blade.

Flooding.

The force that spills over after overflowing.

<Exotic Martial Arts> <Heavenly Sword Method: Final Strike> <Sword Sea Flooding>

Unleashing it all at once.
If a disaster fell from the skies like a thousand-thousand mountains turning the heavens into a sea,
then Sword Sea Flooding was a disaster that pushed the earth back and destroyed everything with overwhelming sword strikes.

Different power. Different effectiveness.
The untidy sea of sword strikes swept through the giant arms, dispersing and smashing them into pieces.
Though she couldn't display the same feats,
she understood the principle of the joining and separation of forces.
And so, Boogeyman reached his own final strike.
The first step toward the ultimate, toward his own Daoist Paradise of martial arts.
A far-off goal, but the beginning of a journey.

Myriad Evils
Like vines, they intertwine and spread evil.

Remains of Harm
The overwhelming force that penetrates cruelly and harms.

<Boogeyman> <Boogeyman’s Dark Claw: Final Strike> <Myriad Evils and Remains>

With one hand, he borrowed the power of countless hands extending from the wardrobe.
While the Silent Swordsman’s Sword Sea Flooding swept away the oncoming threats,
Boogeyman’s Myriad Evils and Remains were a continuous chain of malice, tearing and shredding the very essence of it all.

He had implemented the principle of joining and separation with his hands.
Countless martial arts techniques were woven together, combining in an inferno of devastating force.

‘Can a mere inflated vessel, devoured by countless evils, face my infinite malice?’

Boogeyman squeezed and tore the approaching arms, crushing them without leaving a trace.

Boom!
Whoosh!

The poisonous blood rained down, and the scattered flesh fell.
Monsters that had miraculously survived the devastation lifted their heads.

"Humans are terrifying..."
"What’s inside that wardrobe..."

The monsters, feeling the gap they couldn’t bridge, entered their moment of despair.