Before the ambush,
Kang-hoo had taken Mua-je and Mad Solarkium early.
And by using Unfair Trade to secure one physical shield and one magic shield, he had also taken out insurance for the worst case.
Unfair Trade had the downside of temporarily losing stats in exchange for gaining a reliable shield, but Kang-hoo’s approach to this skill was the same now as it had been when he first obtained it.
If he allowed even a single attack from a top-tier hunter like Vincent, getting hit by a combo would happen in an instant.
And once that happened, it wouldn’t matter whether his toughness was 1,000 or 10,000. He’d die either way.
【Weirdo】
【For the same skill, the consumption cost is tripled, producing an effect improved by 2x compared to before.】
He had also activated the Weirdo constellation effect early.
He could choose not to use it if he wanted, but right now he needed maximum firepower to face Vincent.
He wasn’t in a position to be picky, so even the constellation he had plundered from Ishihara Yuji came in handy.
【Steel Assault Captain】
【When there are no enemies other than the target within a 10m radius, your Strength stat check increases by 25%.】
The constellation he had obtained from Jo Hwan-seong—an Eclipse member and the warden of Cheongmyeong Detention Center—was also being applied appropriately.
With every condition needed for a one-on-one against Vincent “activated,” there was nothing to regret.
“Kraugh! Goddamn it!”
Kang-hoo pulled back as Vincent, eyes blazing with rage, responded by pouring magic skills in all directions.
He was firing off skills wildly, dumping huge amounts of mana without any restraint.
There was no need to force close-quarters here and deliberately eat some random skill he threw out.
If Vincent spent his strength on his own, that only made things easier for the one waiting to exploit an opening.
And those indiscriminately flung magic skills were also great for stacking the Decay stat by blocking them with Wall of Integrity.
Koooom!
When he caught one of Vincent’s attacks with Wall of Integrity—
【Decay: 3】
the stat stacked.
At 100, he could trigger “Decay” whenever he wanted. The conditional requirement would be met.
‘Linking the third eye with teleportation paid off. I hit him harder than I expected.’
Kang-hoo was satisfied.
He hadn’t thought he could kill a hunter at Vincent’s level in one shot.
Hunters of this caliber basically always had one or two ways to protect themselves from a fatal wound.
Whether it was an item effect, a constellation effect, or a one-time skill they personally held.
So after seeing the first strike’s damage reduced or negated, he drove in follow-up stabs.
Even from a distance, he could already see Vincent’s side soaked with blood.
If it looked that soaked even under clothing, the bleeding beneath the cloth was worse.
Vincent’s critical mistake was that, in his panic, he tried to leave the scene by the easiest method.
Of course, that had been Kang-hoo’s trap—but Vincent’s response was clumsier than expected.
Probably because he had never been hit by an unexpected ambush like this until now.
It wasn’t that he’d never faced an assassin.
He had simply met, for the first time, an assassin who observed the battlefield in real time even from afar and teleported directly behind him.
‘He has no innate healing skill. With the opening strike landing cleanly, I have the edge in psychological warfare.’
Not getting cocky over the successful ambush, Kang-hoo cooled his emotions down further, growing colder and more rational.
If Vincent could die from one or two hits, he wouldn’t have become one of The Thirteen Stars in the first place.
His real strength was that he possessed three hidden skills. It had been mentioned in the original story.
【Forced Fusion】
Forced Fusion was a skill that could combine projectile-type magic skills without limit.
It was even possible to fuse a current-sphere creation skill with a magic arrow skill to create an electric-current arrow skill.
Of course, compared to a “pure” electric-current arrow skill, it would be crude—but in raw power, it could be even stronger.
【A Saint’s Wish】
A Saint’s Wish, on the premise that mana was supplied continuously, let skill firepower and efficiency break past limits.
It effectively removed restrictions, to the point that even the caster couldn’t gauge the output.
For example, a flame skill that normally ignited fire once—if linked with A Saint’s Wish, could create a wall of fire that never went out, assuming infinite mana supply.
【Five-Colored Blessing】
Five-Colored Blessing granted alternating immunities against physical, magic, elemental, mental-status, and bodily-status effects.
He couldn’t choose which immunity he received, but at every moment, some form of immunity always existed.
Needless to say, when it was physical immunity, all physical damage—like dagger attacks—was ignored.
When it was mental-status immunity, all mind-related skill effects were nullified. The ruling was absolute.
With three such absurd skills, it wasn’t hard to understand why Vincent lusted after other hunters’ abilities.
Of course, Kang-hoo had no intention of dying to satisfy that greed. Unless he took them in reverse.
Vincent—who until just now had been emotionally venting by spraying skills in every direction—
Fwaaaah!
shifted his entire body into Dark Energy condensate form and began approaching Kang-hoo again.
He had taken a heavy wound,
but he judged he had successfully cut off Kang-hoo’s follow-up chain and entered a counterattack phase.
Because he had been thoroughly burned by Dark Energy Ignition, Vincent looked like a wreck.
His clothes were half burned and half rags. His face was burned too, parts of it melted down.
His once-decent face had turned into a grotesque mess in an instant—unpleasant to look at head-on.
【Dark Energy Ignition】
Kang-hoo responded the same as before.
But—
Vincent, transformed into a round black jelly-like condensate, didn’t allow the same attack this time.
Kwa-ga-ga-ga!
Floating in midair, Vincent spun his entire condensate body and raised a huge wind of Dark Energy.
Then Kang-hoo’s Dark Energy, which had been headed toward Vincent, vanished without a trace—like a breeze swallowed by a gale.
“Tsk.”
Kang-hoo clicked his tongue.
Dark Energy Ignition had become an unusable option now.
This was a trait that appeared only in fights against masters. They didn’t get hit by the same repertoire twice.
Their learning curve for danger was fast, and they had options to respond.
They weren’t like low-tier hunters who got hit again simply because they couldn’t respond even after recognizing the threat.
‘Then.’
He had stimulated Vincent enough.
Now he needed to smartly use the counterattack Vincent would throw back at that stimulus.
From the moment the first ambush succeeded, everything for Kang-hoo had been a chain of psychological warfare.
Read the opponent’s move first, and make them recognize yours late. That was the essence of mind games.
“That’s enough of a hazing!”
“You’re really winning in your head like that.”
“Shut up, you f*ck!”
Vincent widened the distance slightly and immediately brought both hands together in front of him, releasing a skill.
Spaaang!
With a roar like a sonic boom, a black-blue sphere shot in a straight line.
Shatter Bolt.
It was a basic skill a black mage obtained at level 400, where one could choose one out of five options.
Among them, Shatter Bolt had excellent penetration, so even grazing it could easily cause serious injury.
It had almost no effect on inanimate targets, but against living targets like humans, the effect was reliable.
‘I can knock it aside. Rather than dodging, I’ll build Decay in any situation.’
Kang-hoo’s objective was clear.
Battles among experts were ultimately decided by setups.
And the success rate changed greatly depending on how far outside expectations that setup moved.
“Decay,” which could seal all skills, was the most lethal skill against Vincent, a mage.
And that wasn’t all.
The Wall of Integrity, which would be consistently revealed in the process of blocking skills, was perfect for provoking Vincent—who was obsessively fixated on hidden skills.
A two-track strategy: stack Decay, while also inflaming Vincent’s greed.
【Wall of Integrity】
Koooom!
“Kgh.”
Tsssss!
Even though he deflected Shatter Bolt with Wall of Integrity from the side rather than head-on, his body slid backward.
If he had taken it head-on, it didn’t feel like it would have ended with simple knockback.
He even thought Wall of Integrity might have cracked. The firepower was beyond imagination.
【Decay: 13】
The stat stacked again.
Seeing it like this, the remaining 87 to reach 100 looked needlessly far away.
“Yeah. That’s it. The hidden skill I wanted! Wall of Integrity, was it? The skill I’m going to have!”
It was such garbage talk that Kang-hoo didn’t even bother with a scoff.
Still, he did think Vincent would crave it badly.
For a mage hunter, a versatile defensive skill like Wall of Integrity had tremendous synergy.
Without even using a physical shield, he could freely wield a skill that produced effects beyond a shield, whenever he wished.
A mage concept that, like an assassin, was more focused on offense than defense couldn’t help but drool over it.
“I’ll definitely take it!”
In an instant, Vincent exuded a frenzied red glare, overlapped both hands at a single point, and cast a skill.
【Iljin-yepung】
Iljin-yepung, one of the wind magic skills, was characterized by extreme speed and sharpness in each orb.
It looked like wind, but it was wind that carried saw-blade-like cutting intent in multiple strands as it raked past.
For the one who had to block it, it was difficult—and if he allowed even a small gap, he could easily take deep wounds.
Since the tips of the wind blades were hook-shaped, once they tore skin and flesh, it wasn’t easy to stop the bleeding.
Ka-ga-gak! Ka-ga-gak!
Iljin-yepung began roughly raking the Wall of Integrity that had already been erected.
It wasn’t a single volley. The wind came in multiple waves, so breaking straight through was not easy.
‘There’s only one reason he’d use a frontal suppression skill like this without sharply closing the distance.’
Kang-hoo realized that Vincent, too, was engaging in psychological warfare just as much as he was.
Even if it was efficient, mindlessly blocking forever with Wall of Integrity was stupidity.
He would inevitably become a stationary target—and that was exactly the prey a mage loved most.
But since Iljin-yepung was whipping nonstop from the front, forward movement was impossible.
‘Then.’
After completing his judgment, Kang-hoo used three skills that could quickly flip the situation here.
【Illusion Arts】
【Clone Arts】
【Shadow Step】
He abandoned the front.
Then, mixing illusion and shadow appropriately, he split to the left and right, and blended his clones with his true body within the swarm.
In particular, he compressed mana as much as possible and overlaid it onto one of the illusions created by Illusion Arts.
Ultimately, the way to distinguish the real body from an illusion wasn’t sight but sensation,
and the way a mage like Vincent quickly identified illusions was by judging the depth of mana.
Counter–mind game, striking back at the mind game!
Kang-hoo’s true body, mixed into the countless gaps among the many “Shin Kang-hoos,” kept his mouth shut and waited for the chance to assassinate.
But then—
Kishiiiing!
“……?”
A problem arose.
From beneath his feet as he burrowed into the right flank to avoid Iljin-yepung, something sharp thrust upward.
Dark Arrows.
A skill like Kang-hoo’s Thorn Hell—summoning countless Dark Energy arrows like thorns from below the ground.
