Debuff Master-Chapter 1195

The phantom was visibly shaken by the sudden change in scenery after being dragged into the World of Despair.

The fact that he was suddenly transported to a different realm was already shocking enough, but what made him freeze was the fact that his comrades were nowhere to be found.

“I ain’t got all day, so let’s make this quick. Got it?” Siegfried said with a smirk.

With those words, he lunged at the phantom.

He had no plans to waste time engaging in small talk.

The World of Despair would go into cooldown if he failed to kill his opponent during its duration. If he wasted time with meaningless chatter and failed to finish off the phantom, then he would be forced to face nineteen powerful phantoms afterward.

Siegfried was confident he could win against all nineteen phantoms even if they ganged up on him with their battle formations, but he saw no reason to make his life difficult when he could take the easy way out.

Fwooosh!

With that thought, he activated Karma Flare and Embrace of Despair, debuffing the phantom.

Then, he shot forward and unleashed the Invincible Spear Art.

“G-Gaaagh—!”

The phantom’s scream was cut short.

The +10 Sky Piercer tore the phantom into shreds in mere seconds, dissipating him before he could realize what hit him, and the phantom didn't even last long enough for him to understand just how badly Siegfried outclassed him.

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

[Alert: World of Despair cooldown has been reset!]

The World of Despair receded, and the Grave of Swords came back into view.

“...”

“...”

“...”

The nineteen remaining phantoms froze with their eyes wide. One of their brothers had simply vanished right before their eyes, swallowed by the darkness, and only this human appeared once again.

Their brother was nowhere to be found, vanished forever from sight.

Siegfried smirked and said, “Next customer.”

Without wasting another second, he dragged the next phantom into the World of Despair.

After that, he dragged another, another, and another.

Every single phantom he dragged into the World of Despair met the same fate.

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

(omitted...)

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

[Alert: You have obtained Experience Points!]

[Alert: You have leveled up!]

[Alert: You have reached Level 523!]

Siegfried emerged from the World of Despair after ripping to shreds the last and final phantom of the White Brotherhood. The battle formation they had developed and honed for years was rendered useless with just a single skill.

With their numerical superiority gone and their battle formation rendered useless, Siegfried annihilated the phantoms one by one by dragging them to his realm and ripping them apart mercilessly.

With that, he gained another level and was now one step closer to achieving his goal.

‘Time for the next one,’ Siegfried thought.

He had no plans on slowing down just because he had gained another level. His now mortal enemy, Lee Geon, was most likely growing stronger with each passing second.

Moreover, the Marchioni Empire was currently making preparations to strike the Proatine Empire. The fearsome empire’s schemes would not only end with the complete annihilation of the Proatine Empire; they were also planning the disappearance of the Adventurers from the face of this world.

In order to crush the ones who dared to threaten him and everything he held dear, he had no choice but to grow stronger.

Rest was a luxury he couldn't afford, as he had to keep moving forward.

With that resolve, he focused on clearing the Grave of Swords before anything else.

Lee Geon was the biggest threat to him right now, and in order to forge the one weapon capable of exploiting the Devouring Grand Art’s weakness, he had to clear the Grave of Swords and obtain its rewards.

***

Meanwhile, the Ancient Dungeons located within the Marchioni Empire’s territory were bustling with Adventurers.

After news of the Ancient Dungeons dropping Legendary and Relic items had spread, Adventurers began flocking in droves to whichever Ancient Dungeon was available to clear.

However, the frenzy was fueled even further after the fact that the next item set tiers—Transcendent and Sanctified—could be forged using the Legendary Fragments had spread.

Every high-level Adventurer rushed to raid the dungeons. Over two hundred Ancient Dungeons had spawned in the Marchioni Empire, giving it the largest share of such dungeons on the continent.

Though it seemed strange that a single nation had gotten the lion’s share of the Ancient Dungeons, this was only natural when taking into consideration that the Marchioni Empire possessed the largest territory among all nations on the continent.

Adventurers gathered from all over the continent into the Marchion Empire’s territory in order to raid the Ancient Dungeons.

Some raid parties died repeatedly in order to create a strategy to help with farming or clearing the dungeons, while some outright tried to clear them on their first raid.

However, only a handful of Ancient Dungeons within the Marchioni Empire’s territory had been cleared so far, even though such a massive number of high-level Adventurers were raiding them.

The difficulty of the Ancient Dungeons was absurdly high, so it was not all that strange for the raids to fail.

In fact, failing the raid had become the widely accepted norm now, so nobody was shocked even though a raid party composed of powerful Adventurers was wiped out.

Among the Ancient Dungeons, one particular dungeon had earned quite the infamy among Adventurers.

This particular dungeon was called the Hill of Storms.

Unlike most Ancient Dungeons, this dungeon had no entry restrictions or limits. A raid party with five members could enter it, and a raid party with tens of thousands of members could enter it, too.

However, the difficulty level of the Hill of Storms bordered on absolute absurdity.

Not a single Adventurer who entered it had ever returned alive, and not a single raid strategy had been formulated against it.

Most raid parties that attempted to raid it were annihilated so quickly that they had no idea what happened, and most were killed before they could even consider turning back.

Due to the absurdly high difficulty level, the Adventurers stopped attempting to raid the Hill of Storms dungeon, which eventually turned it into an abandoned, forgotten dungeon.

Now, only the Marchioni Empire’s imperial knights could be found in front of the dungeon’s entrance.

Their duties originally were to register the Adventurers who attempted to raid the dungeon and distribute quest rewards if they somehow produced results.

However, with the lack of challengers brave enough to attempt to raid the dungeon, their duties had shifted to just keeping watch over the place.

As mundane as their duty sounded, it was still a highly important one, as they had to raise the alarm if the dungeon started to go on a rampage.

“We will be taking over now.”

“Acknowledged.”

Unsurprisingly, their discipline was flawless.

As imperial knights, they could have grumbled at the fact that such a dull task, which could be carried out by ordinary soldiers or guards, was assigned to them. Yet, even when there was nobody around, they strictly followed protocol and carried themselves in a dignified manner.

They prided themselves on being the knights of the world’s most powerful nation, so not a single one of them took their post lightly.

Days passed without much event until—

Woooong!

The dungeon entrance suddenly glowed bright red and emitted a violent surge of energy.

“...!”

The knights stiffened instantly.

Shwooong... Poof! Poof!

The signalmen immediately shot signal flares into the sky, alerting the nearby garrisons.

An Ancient Dungeon going on a rampage, also known as a Dungeon Break, meant that monsters would soon come surging out from it.

Those waves of monsters would inevitably cause widespread damage, so the nearby garrisons needed to be alerted in order to create defensive lines.

“Retreat!”

The knight commander gave the order without hesitation.

Their mission was to warn the nearby garrisons should the dungeon rampage—not to stop or contain it.

Besides, it was impossible to stop an Ancient Dungeon with just ten imperial knights, so there was no point in even attempting to stop it.

“Fall back! Hurry!”

The knights sprinted through the forest, leaving behind the rampaging dungeon.

Wooooong!

A blinding flash erupted behind them, unleashing a powerful burst of energy. The knight commander ran, but something about the whole thing made him feel uneasy.

‘This is strange... There should be monsters flooding out of the dungeon by now. But where’s the chaos?’ he thought.

The woods were far too quiet. There was no snarling or roaring of beasts.

Only silence filled the forest.

‘Were we mistaken? Did it not rampage? Or... was that just the prelude?’

Filled with questions, the knight commander decided to take the risk and look back toward the direction of the Ancient Dungeon.

Shwaaa...

A cool, crisp breeze blew past him. The refreshing breeze was so gentle that he felt revitalized when it caressed his cheek.

A few seconds later...

Shwiiiiiik!

The gentle breeze grew stronger and stronger until it turned into a violent gale.

Shwaaaaaaak!

Trees snapped like twigs, and stones were hurled into the air.

The knight commander’s eyes widened in horror.

‘A-Ah...’

He realized that the gentle breeze was just the calm before the storm. A massive storm was forming around the dungeon entrance, circling around it like a cyclone.

In the blink of an eye, the storm expanded to greater proportions and was now surging toward the knights like a tsunami.

The knights witnessed the force of nature in action; they stopped running and simply gave up. They realized there was no point in running, as there was no way they could outrun the storm.

Whoooooosh!

The winds howled like a pack of angry beasts snarling at the knights.

Then, without warning, the winds grabbed the knights and gobbled them up. The storm tore them up, and their bodies vanished into the maelstrom.

The Marchioni Empire’s imperial knights had disappeared without leaving a single trace behind.

***

The 5th Corps of the Marchioni Empire was stationed roughly ten kilometers from the Hill of Storms.

They mobilized at once upon spotting the signal flares and formed defensive lines to shield the nearby city from whatever horrors would come pouring out from the Ancient Dungeon.

However, they soon realized that the horrors they had prepared for weren't something they could stop.

“T-That’s no monster! That’s a damn storm!”

“A massive storm is approaching our position!”

“Oh my god... How can such a storm even form...?”

The 5th Corps despaired after seeing the storm heading straight toward them.

How were they supposed to fight against the force of nature?

They would have valiantly defended their position until their very last dying breath if they were facing an army or a horde of savage monsters. However, their enemy this time was a storm—one so colossal that it stretched as far as the eyes could see.

This was a natural disaster never seen before on the continent—one that was on a completely different scale.

What could an army do against such a phenomenon?

“F-Fall back! Take shelter!”

“Get underground! Now!”

“Grab onto something! Hold on tight!”

The knight commanders quickly judged that their army couldn’t outrun the winds, so all they could do was hold on for dear life and pray that the storm would pass them by.

Whooooooosh!

The storm crashed into the 5th Corps’ encampment. No, it did not come crashing on them—it simply passed through them. And yet nothing remained once the winds receded.

Not a single one of the defensive walls, barracks, armories, training fields, watch towers, and various other military structures set up remained standing. Only a barren, empty land was left behind, and nothing about the site resembled anything remotely close to a military encampment.

To make it worse, the one hundred thousand troops stationed in the encampment had been completely annihilated, and only a few lucky survivors, who managed to hide underground just before the storm struck, managed to live to tell their tale.

Of course, the storm didn't care whether there were survivors or not.

Whooooooosh!

It howled and raced forward.

Where was it heading to?

The storm was en route toward the large sprawling city in the distance.

***

Siegfried carved his way through the Grave of Swords, cutting down ninety-nine phantoms. Now only a single phantom remained, which was the one that could be considered the boss of this dungeon.

‘Hm?’

However, Siegfried couldn’t help but find the weapon that housed the last and final phantom to be strange.

It was neither a sword nor a spear. In fact, it couldn’t even be considered a weapon at all.

In the place of a weapon, a simple rectangular box that was no larger than the ones that smartphones would come in was on the ground.

‘Eh? What the hell is that?’

As soon as the thought flickered across Siegfried’s mind—

Click... Clack!

The box snapped open.

Fsshhh...!

From within, strands of silver strings floated into the air and drifted like weightless silk.

The silver strands weaved through the air before suddenly vanishing from sight.

‘Huh? What kind of weapon is that?’ Siegfried wondered.

Before he could even think about it—

Sssrkk...

The final boss of the Grave of Swords appeared.