Chapter 12
I don't own solo leveling or Jujutsu Kaisen
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"Even if it means killing someone like Kim Bora."
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Dropping his heavy bag to ground as all the stuff inside fell in a heap onto the floor. He sighed walking forward towards the closed off entrance. Suho had done a pretty handy job at blocking off the only route out with his fire magic, but even with all this debris in the way he felt it was possible to escape if he tried hard enough.
He didn't know what to feel about being abandoned by the others like this. He had never got the indication that this was their plan until the last possible second when he couldn't do anything about it. And by then it was already too late, they were ready to strike him down no matter what he said.
He hadn't been a hunter for long, probably two years at most, and so he went off of the experiences of people he respected. His uncle had taught him to never abandoned anyone during a raid. Your teammates were your life is what he told him, but what happens when that life stabs you in the back.
He hadn't decided on that answer yet.
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[Giant Chiroptera, Monster of the Snow]
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The loud flapping of wings cut off his internal monologuing followed by the a giant bat, three times the size of a normal human, with brown fur and malicious red eyes.
'That must be the boss. A C-rank boss by the feel of it,' He thought as he stared down the rushing winged mass.
Regardless of how he felt about being betrayed by the Min Su and his lackeys this was a good opportunity to level up. A C-rank boss was definitely a tall task at his current level but he was looking forward to the challenge.
Calling forth his sleek serrated edge katana from his inventory he got into a stance ready for any surprises the monster might throw at his.
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[Item: Kitsune's Razor Tail
Item Class: C
Item Type: Katana
Attack :+32
Description
A sleek katana blade with a serrated edge from the Razor Tailed Kitsune.
Effect - Bleeding - Foes damaged by this blade lose 1% health every second.]
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'It's quite speedy...' he thought as the giant bat descended trying to strike him down with its sharp fangs.
Flipping over the beast whilst simultaneously landing a quick strike on its back. He kicked off the bat's back and landed in a crouch.
'I can easily tear through its skin even without activating Vital Strike.'
Since his skill vital strike had such a low mana consumption Kim thought about experimenting and combining it with his normal strikes so that everytime he struck an opponent it would always be a critical hit or at least more likely to be one.
He tried to test the waters with this bat seeing as it didn't look like it had any armored areas.
"So that must mean it has some kind of special ability, otherwise there would be no way it could be the boss through aerial advantage alone," he theorized to himself.
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The six eyes were an incredible ocular ability unlike anything the world has ever seen. It broke down the flow magical energy down to the atomic level and overall increased the efficient use of mana.
It was the reason why he was able to notice a massive build up of mana at the mouth of the bat. Thinking that moving out the way would be best before anything bad happened was the wisest course of action, because...
*Skriee!*
The ground was tunneled due to the loud sound wave that blasted forth from the bat's mouth. Even if he was a few meters away from the attack his ears still rang painfully, but not enough to disorientate him.
'That ringing it's the same as back then! If I had been struck just now, my ears would have been done for!' Kim fretted leaping to the side to avoid a dive attack from the winged menace.
Jumping back in he used his raw movement speed to close the distance and land to slashing attacks on the monster's body causing it to screech in pain.
Grimacing at the stinging in his ears from the beast's screaming, he decided to power through and slice off it's wing with relative easy.
'This is a C-rank boss? Maybe I overestimated it's strength?' he thought as the bat laid on the ground helplessly with its detached wing next to it.
However, the strangest thing started happening to the wing as steam burst from it, obscuring its form from his vision as he saw the mana shift into a different shape.
After all was said and done a second bat, but two times smaller in size, emerged from the steam. Wasting no time it didn't give Kim a second to process what happened already putting him on the back foot by forcing him to dodge the sharp talons.
"Tch!"
He grunted rolling back to dodge he looked up to see the winged meance in air once again, already flying down to harm him with its sharp talons. Reacting on time, he perfectly parryed the attempt and went to parry another attempt when it quickly circled back for another strike.
'How annoying... It's keeping its distance whilst still being able to use its most dangerous weapon,' he complained. The six eyes user knew that he didn't want to get struck by those talons, just parrying blows from the thing made his bones vibrate so a direct hit would do some serious damage. However, he wasn't too sure how long he could keep parrying it didn't seem like it was slowing down and if anything it was getting faster with each attempt.
'Faster and deadlier than the previous one. Not a good combo especially considering that the other is getting up now,' he thought taking a glance behind him to see the once downed bat had regrown its wing and was now ready to fight.
"Let's speed things up. Shall we!" he turned serious, jumping back to the wall behind him and using it as a platform to launch off of.
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[Dash Lvl 1:
Grants the user a 30% boost to speed. Changing the tide of a battle.
- Requires 20 MP to activate -
- Consumes 1 MP per minute - ]
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Using his strength and skill, Vital strike, to meet the flying bat head on and land a slash right on its soft, furry underbelly. Darting on to the ceiling and then moving down to land multiple slices on its back.
Dashing and darting around the cave to land multiple attacks on the bat making sure every cut was as deep as possible with vital strike.
Landing on the ground to catch his breath after that explosive burst he couldn't help but sense an intense surge of magical energy to the right of him.
Turning to acknowledge the source he saw the previous bat charging up a screech that would blow his ears out. Using his dash skill to avoid being struck, he charged towards the monster aiming to stab it instead of slicing.
However, he was sent veering off course by a sound wave behind him. Tumbling for but a moment before recovering he glared at the sliced up talon bat not expecting something like that even though he really should have.
'It's not nearly as powerful as the original's screech, but it's enough to send me tumbling,' he examined the attacks properties.
It was a good thing he had only created wounds enough to down the bat from flying so that he could prevent it from multiplying.
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[Fatigue: 47]
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"Hmm!" he hummed to himself wiping some blood running down his nose.
He didn't get time to ponder the strange nose bleed before pressure was applied by the screeching bat by raming into him head on.
He gurgled out blood as he crashed into a wall causing rubble to crash all around him.
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[HP: 1693/2722]
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The system flashed red as his health dropped close to half, 'That's right... The screech wasn't its only weapon! As expected of a C-rank boss,' he thought slowly climbing out the crater his body created.
In that short span of time the bats had once again multipled. How? Kim wasn't sure, but he needed to put a stop to it.
He had been fighting this thing for a while now and the odds kept going against him. Kim needed something to switch the tides of the battle otherwise it would continue to multiple and eventually overwhelm him.
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[Fatigue: 57]
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All 3 bats flew into the air and charged straight towards the six eyes user. Kim flipped over the first and used it as a platform to leap onto the next one before using his fists and the butt of his sword to spike the last one to the ground.
"Ah, I see..." he muttered, watching the blood spit out by the ground bat form into a smaller bat the previous one.
So everytime it was damaged enough to draw blood, it used said blood to form new versions of itself. His sword that had a neat status effect of bleed didn't work in his favor.
'But every instance of multiplication it was conscious enough to do so. So what if it didn't have a head to think to do something like that,' Kim theorized. Using his blade to parry the talon bat flying at him hoping to maim him. He flipped to the side to dodge a sound wave launched by the screeching bat before blocking a body slam by the newest enemy.
Every living thing had a natural weak point to exploit like the eyes and head, especially. This is because on every level living creatures needed a brain to move the body or activate techniques like this weird multiplication.
So with that plan set on his mind he rushed forth using his dash skill to blitz the most troublesome bat. The talon bat never saw anything before its head was sliced clean off its body.
'Shit! It's getting harder and harder for me to move quickly! I've taken too much time trying to kill this thing,' Kim cursed in his head as he could do nothing but get hit by third bat raming into him.
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[Fatigue: 67]
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"Argh!" tumbling to the ground Kim didn't waste anytime before jumping back up to his feet. It didn't just ram into his but left a little bite mark on his shoulder.
'Tch! No time to worry! Just focus on cutting their heads off,' Kim thought shrugging off the pain on his shoulder. His oceanic blue eyes shimmered a brilliant blue as he kept track of the all three bats flying around him trying to confuse him.
He backflipped over the smallest one before moving to the side to dodge the original one. He saw the third bat flying towards him with talons similar to its fallen brethren that he parried cleanly. Using his quick reflexes to grab the bat and slam it down before sheering its head clean off and just like the previous, stomped its head to mush for good measure.
*Screech*
Avoiding the sonic wave launched at him from the small bat racing towards him, he used his dash skill to meet the monster in the air and slice it apart so quickly with his Razor Tail until it was nothing more than mince meat.
"And then there was one."
A confident smirk on his face as he and the bat stared each other down. If this battle had dragged on any longer then he would have been in trouble, but with the way Kim was feeling at the moment.
"This was way more troublesome than it should've been!" he shouthed charging at the giant bat.
Expressing his superiority over the monster once again by leaping onto it and stomping on its head to ground it. Holding back nothing, he sliced and diced its head until it was nothing.
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[Giant Chiroptera, Monster of the Snow had been slain!]
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[You have leveled up!]
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[You have leveled up!]
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[You have leveled up!]
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[You have leveled up!]
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[You have leveled up!]
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[Name: Kim Bora Level: 23
Title: Lynx Predator,... Fatigue: 71
Job: None
HP: 3488/3488
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MP: 1609/1688
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Strength: 49(+10)
Agility: 31 (+55)
Vitality: 31
Sense: 31 (+65)
Intelligence: 35 (+75)
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Remaining Stat points: 7]
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"Hah... Hah... Hah..."
Kim's heavy breathing was only thing that was heard in eerily quiet cave, his unruly white hair hanging over his forehead. He let the Razor Tail clatter to the ground as it automatically returned to his inventory. His previous wounds had healed up pretty nicely thanks to leveling up so much.
Digging into guts of monster he killed, he found what he was looking for. A luminous stone about the size of his hand with a razor sharp edge. With this he could fetch at least 1 million won since he wouldn't be able to mine the giant mana crystals scattered across the cave.
"Ack! My head hurts!" he grunted putting a hand to his head as his face contorted into visage of pain and discomfort.
RUMBLE!
His attention was then taken away from his aching head towards the tremors going on behind him. As the smoke cleared to reveal the teammates that had abandoned him. Not that he was too torn up about it.
"Huh? What he beat the boss?"
"Looks like there was more than one too!"
"They probably weren't a big deal anyway if a D-ranker took care of it."
As soon as the lackeys of Min Su came upon the scene of Kim standing in front of the decapitated corpse of the giant bat, they couldn't help but be baffled by how the hunter was able to take care of it.
'It would be possible for him to take out a C-rank boss if he had high grade equipment, but he isn't the same as before. He's different...' Min Su's gaze was sharp as he stared at the unruly form of Kim Bora.
"So now what? Your plan to use him as food for the boss was clearly a bust," Suho whispered in the ear of Song yi causing the archer to send a little glare at the magician.
"Snow White! What a pleasant surprise that you were able to take out the boss by yourself. As you can see we came back just like I told yo-" Song yi said commending Kim on his impressive ability to take out a dungeon boss by himself, but he was cut off mid sentence by the man in question.
"Don't try and snake your way out of this one. I know that you guys left me here to die all so you could have the money to yourselves," Kim interrupted Song yi pointing an accusing finger at the hunter.
"What will you do about it? There's 6 of us and one of you. So what do you expect to accomplish?" the spiky haired leader cut in presenting unfavorable odds for him to overcome.
"..."
"Before you answer that let me ask you this. Have you ever killed someone one before?" Min Su said drawing his dual swords and walking forward in a threating manner. His eyes shimmering a violet color.
Bloodlust. Killing intent. Those were the feelings directed towards him by all 6 enemies facing him as they all drew weapons and bared their metaphorical fangs at him.
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[HP:1744/3488]
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A powerful blast from Suho sent him rocketing towards a wall causing rubble to form around him as soon as he made impact with the wall.
'Hehe... What time for the bat's poison to kick in. A C-rank magician and a powerful poison it's no wonder I've been reduced to such a state,' in his mind he commended Park Suho's efforts, but if it hadn't been for the poison he wouldn't have been hit at all by the attack.
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[Poison Status effect-
Movement speed decrease by 20%.
Strength decrease by 20%.
Lose 1% health every minute.]
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The disparities between ranks is something he always kept in mind when he envitably confronted the scumbags. Even after years of bodily training and the gap in power between ranks can be very wide, as C-ranks easily overpower D-ranks. So when Min Su posed the question about what he would do against 6 C-rank hunters he hesitated for a fraction of a second and that lead to him being blasted into a pile of rubble.
Hesitation is death.
That was a phrase his mother spouted in their sparring sessions a long time ago. If he hesitated then he would be killed by his enemies that didn't.
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[Stamina Replenishment reward accepted.]
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He climbed out the rubble with his previous fatigue erased and his raging headache gone.
"Hey, was your aim off or something? Why's he still up?" Gyu Han asked Suho.
"Probably..." Suho's muttered knowing he put his all into that blast. The kid was just that durable... No, no he just didn't put as much forced as he thought he did.
"I'll fight. I'd win," Kim said simply dusting himself off whilst summoning his sword from his inventory. A few were shocked at the appearance of the weapon from seemingly out of nowhere as he continued to walk forward.
"What?" Min Su said perplexed at the statement unlike the others who were focused on his weapon.
Kim pointed his blade directly at the leader with power shimmering through his oceanic, crystal blue eyes.
"You asked me what I would do against the 6 of you. I'm saying I'd win."
"Hehe! You're really out of it, aren't you? Just accept it, you're out matched" Suho laughed finding it funny that Kim could even conceive a reality where he'd 'win' against 6 C-ranked opponents. He approached the white haired youth putting hand on his shoulder.
"We'll make it painless since we like you," he whispered in Kim's ear only leading to a smirk of confidence to form on the D-ranker's face.
"My thoughts exactly."
*Slice*
Suho's head went flying from the swift slash attack with Kim's serrated katana, the Razor Tail. Flicking his katana to get the blood off his blade, some of it splattered on his face making his next words more chilling for the rest.
"Looks like it's 5 against one now."