Player who Returned 10,000 years Later

"ROOAARR!!"

The buer's shout shook the entire passageway.

The demonic monster with a lion's head and five legs swallowed its saliva while looking at its prey.

A delicious smell it had never smelled before was wafting from its prey.

The buer opened its mouth and leaped toward them.

"Wh-what is this monster?!"

"B-block!"

With fearful expressions on their faces, they took out their weapons.

But it was so strong that it had taken out the party's tank with just one attack.

There was no way they could block the buer's attacks.

Crack-!!

"AARGG!! S-save me!!"

The buer bit the lower half of the sword-wielding player.

He tried to cut the buer with his sword, but it was so strong that he couldn't walk away from it.

The player was cut in half, and his organs were seen hanging from his torso.

"Ah, ah…"

Kang SeongSoo's party members looked at the buer with desperate expressions.

Monster…

A predator that devoured humans.

The first time players face monsters, they become instinctively scared of the aura of predators.

But as players hunt and gain experience, that fear becomes weaker.

Since Kang SeongSoo's party had grown fast without going through dangerous situations, they’d quickly forgotten about that fear.

For them, monsters were nothing more than beings who gave them experience and money.

They were filled with a fear they'd forgotten about.

"Wh-what are you doing?! Attack!"

Kang SeongSoo, who had lost his weapon, shouted toward the party members, but they were struggling to attack.

—The fear was devouring them.

"ROOAARR!"

The buer roared after seeing that its prey were scared.

A leg with especially sharp claws targeted the player wielding a greatsword.

The buer cut the greatsword in half and impaled its claws into the player's skull.

"AARRGG!!!"

Crack- Squish-

It pulled its claws that were embedded into the player’s skull downwards.

The claws ripped all the way down through the player’s skull and into his ribs, which broke and cracked open with a grotesque sound as a fountain of blood spouted from him.

The buer devoured the player’s body whole.

"S-SeokHyun!"

A player wielding a thin sword shouted while extending his hands.

—But his sword wasn't properly imbued with mana, so it failed to pierce the buer's thick skin and broke.

The buer's tongue covered the player's body like a snake.

As the buer constricted its tongue, the player’s body crumpled inwards and was unrecognizably crushed into bits of bloody meat and fragments of bone.

"H-hiic!"

The girl wearing the blue robe stopped casting after seeing the horrible sight and screamed.

With a pale face, she turned around and began escaping.

"S-save me!!"

She ran past Kang SeongSoo and outside of the passageway.

The buer turned his head and looked at its prey running away.

"GRRRR."

The leg with sharper claws compared to others started to elongate.

The buer’s leg pierced through the robed girl’s back and emerged from her torso.

"Cough!"

The woman couldn't believe that the monster's claws had pierced through her.

Red blood poured out of her mouth.

Squish-

The fifth prey entered the buer's mouth and disappeared.

"H-huh? Wh-what's happening?"

Kang SeongSoo crumbled onto the ground while looking at how his party members had been devoured instantly.

His pants became wet.

He looked at the buer with an expression filled with fear.

He thought that, soon, he would also be devoured.

"Huh…?"

But unlike what he was expecting to happen, it didn't attack him.

It even yawned and crouched down.

"It's full, huh?"

"What are you…"

Kang SeongSoo looked at KangWoo with a confused expression, who was calmly walking toward the monster.

KangWoo smirked after seeing Kang SeongSoo and extended his right hand toward the buer.

"Once the buer is full, it won't attack you unless you attack it first."

Dealing with a buer that was full was quite easy.

—You had to attack first.

The only thing you had to do was to kill it with just one attack.

Demonic energy began gathering in KangWoo's hand.

"Bident."

—A technique created after a pitchfork that appeared in greek mythology.

You had to combine the Authority of Dark Spear and the Authority of Hellfire to use it, so it was a technique that only KangWoo could use.

An intense hellfire began burning at the end of the pitchfork.

It was a technique that required quite a bit of time to activate since he had to combine two different Authorities, but that didn't matter in the current situation.

Ting-

[You've learned the skill 'Bident (Rank: S).']

[The techniques registered as skills can be used more concisely and precisely.]

With the message that said he had learned a new skill, a spear made of demonic energy appeared.

—A demon's spear that emitted quite a bit of demonic energy.

KangWoo threw the spear at the buer.

Wham-!

The spear had such strength that it shook its surroundings like an earthquake.

"ROOAARR!!"

Because the buer was full, it didn't defend itself.

The pitchfork pierced the buer's thick skin, and the hellfire made its inside explode.

Even the strongest monster of the 2nd Hell couldn't do anything against such a strong attack.

Ting-

[You've successfully eliminated a B-ranked Fissure Fragment.]

[Your level has gone up by 6.]

[You've reached level 40 and unlocked the 5th Awakening Attribute.]

[The restriction to level up stat bonuses has been lifted. Your Demonic Energy stat has gone up by 7.]

[Your Demonic Energy stat has reached 60, and you've unlocked one of the conditions of 'Extreme Demonic Energy Body' (1/3).]

As the buer fell, a blue message window appeared in front of him with a clear notification sound.

'What is an Extreme Demonic Energy Body?'

KangWoo tilted his head after he received an unexpected message window.

'It seems like a name that would most likely appear in a martial arts novel.'

After reading that foreign-like name, KangWoo opened his status window to check for more details about it.

[Information]

Extreme Demonic Energy Body: The first step to becoming a 'Demon God.'

1st Condition: Reach 60 Demonic Energy Stat.

2nd Condition: ???

3rd Condition: ???

'What's up with this unfriendly description?'

KangWoo frowned after reading the status window.

* * *

It didn't say anything about what the Extreme Demonic Energy Body was and what effects it had.

Not only that, but it also didn't mention what the other two conditions were.

'It says that it's the first condition to becoming a demon god, so I guess it isn't something bad.'

Not only was it probably not something bad, but he could already smell the massive amount of power that he would probably be able to obtain.

'This is something new.'

Even when he’d become the ruler of the Hell of Nine Skies, he hadn’t had a strength called Extreme Demonic Energy Body.

KangWoo looked at the information with great interest.

'Is this confirming my previous hypothesis?'

If he kept increasing his level as a player, he would eventually be able to become stronger than when he’d used to rule over Hell.

'It seems like I'll be able to become a literal god.'

An existence that surpassed a demon king…

He still wasn't sure what kind of power he would obtain, but it made his heart beat faster.

"I thought that I no longer had a desire to become stronger, but it seems that I was wrong."

The body of a demon always looked for more strength.

KangWoo had already become quite strong, so he thought he no longer had such desires, but after he got a hint about how to reach new heights, he was filled once more with an intense desire to become stronger.

'First I should devour the buer’s corpse.'

He needed the demonic energy inside the buer to cool down that desire a bit.

Because he had entered there as an investigator for the government, he had to conserve the corpse of the variant monster, but he had no real reason to give up the immediate profit for the government.

'I guess leaving the head should be enough.'

He could probably say that the rest of the body was destroyed in the middle of the battle.

Strong demonic energy came out of his body and covered the body of the buer.

Squish- Crunch-

With the sound of flesh being torn away, the demonic energy of the buer started to enter KangWoo's body.

[Your Demonic Energy stat has increased by 4.]

'As expected, demonic monsters give a lot more demonic energy.'

The fact that his demonic energy stat had increased by four after reaching 60 meant that the buer had a massive amount of demonic energy.

'Oh, I didn't check out the new attribute.'

He’d been distracted with the Extreme Demonic Energy Body and had forgotten to check out his new attribute.

KangWoo was about to open his status window and check the attribute…

"Y-you… What are you…?"

At that moment, he heard Kang SeongSoo's voice, filled with fear.

He was looking at KangWoo as if he were a monster while trembling.

It was normal for him to react like that since KangWoo had eliminated the monster that had killed his party members with just one attack each.

"Oh, yeah. There was one left."

The corners of KangWoo's mouth went up as he walked toward Kang SeongSoo.

"H-hiic! D-don't get close!"

Kang SeongSoo pathetically crawled back.

KangWoo slowly walked toward him.

"How unexpected. I was sure you would be the first one to die."

"D-don't come near me!"

"Why? Aren't we party members?"

KangWoo sat next to Kang SeongSoo and put his hand on his shoulder.

"A-are you going to kill me…? "Kang SeongSoo asked with a voice full of fear.

KangWoo's eyes widened as if he wasn’t sure why he was asking something like that.

"What are you talking about? There's no way I would kill a party member."

"…"

"It seems like you misunderstood me. Hey, SeongSoo, I'm not such a horrible person."

With a smile on his face, he put his hand on top of Kang SeongSoo's head.

"There's still something that you must do, so you cannot die yet."