Chapter 5
Soul Stone
Choi Seong-cheol.
One of Ha Il-hwan’s comrades.
A Player with a frame nearly two meters tall and massive stone arms.
With arms wreathed in lava, he crushed monsters, saving countless lives—yet at the same time, he was also feared.
He was a Player.
The same kind of person as those who oppressed ordinary people.
And with an appearance that imposing, it would’ve been strange if people weren’t afraid.
But the Choi Seong-cheol Se-hyun remembered was different.
He was more human than anyone.
“Brother Seong-cheol! What are you doing, running off on your own again? I told you people get scared!”
“Ah, Se-hyun? Damn, what took you so long!”
Seeing Se-hyun, Seong-cheol let out a relieved laugh.
“Talk to them for me, will you? Everyone’s too terrified. Hahaha!”
Even when his appearance alone made others tremble without reason, he never lost his hearty, booming laugh.
“With that size and those arms, how could people not be scared?”
“Then make sure they know better! I don’t want to be lumped in with the rest of those guys!”
Though he was a Player himself, he hated more than anything being treated like other Players.
“Haha! You see? I’m not scary! I don’t bite~.”
Whenever he waved his hands around to show the weaker folk that he meant no harm, he was no different from a friendly neighborhood hyung.
At times like that, Se-hyun thought to himself:
The world may be ruined, but maybe it wasn’t entirely hopeless.
Yes… there was a time when he believed that.
“Keuk, why so stiff? You scared, punk?”
Yoo Tae-hoon swung his stone arm around like he was stretching.
Clack, clack—!
The sound of rock grinding against rock echoed.
Boom—!
When Tae-hoon slammed his fist into the ground, the earth quaked.
Se-hyun bit down hard on his lip.
Seeing that grim expression, Tae-hoon smirked.
He probably thought Se-hyun was afraid. But fear was the last thing on his mind.
“Why the hell do you have those arms?”
Of course, the ability itself was on a completely different level than what Se-hyun knew.
Right now, Tae-hoon’s strength was only Meteor-class.
Compared to Choi Seong-cheol, who had far surpassed even Planetary-class, it was heaven and earth.
“First, I’ll put him down.”
Why this guy had those powers could wait until later.
Kiiiing—
Se-hyun summoned energy into his bat.
Tap—!
Blue engravings carved a glowing trail as he leapt forward.
Swaak—!
The bat cut the air with the speed of a bullet.
Crack—!
The strike smashed across Tae-hoon’s head, the bat shattering into dust on impact.
The fact it broke was proof the ability had fully activated.
“Guhhh…!!!”
Tae-hoon staggered heavily.
But he didn’t fall.
So this was the sturdiness of a Player—far beyond any normal human.
“And I’ve used up all my bats.”
Whoosh—!
Tae-hoon reset his stance and counterattacked with a heavy blow.
Se-hyun barely leaned back in time, the stone fist grazing past his nose.
The pressure in the air hadn’t even faded before Tae-hoon swung down again.
Swoosh—
“Slow. Definitely slow.”
So slow that even Se-hyun, still untrained, could follow it with his eyes.
KWAANG!!!
But the raw power was undeniable, splitting the asphalt beneath them.
“Are you just gonna dodge? Use that pathetic little ability of yours again!”
“How about you try landing one hit first?”
Se-hyun wiped his brow, tossing out the line casually.
But inside, he was anxious.
“I can’t take him lightly.”
Slow but crushing blows.
Even if he was weaker than Choi Seong-cheol, it was still the might of a golem’s arm.
Meanwhile, Se-hyun had already played his hand.
“Use that pathetic power? …If only I could.”
When he first turned a fork into an Artifact, he thought he’d awakened a decent ability.
But after countless trials, he had reached one conclusion:
“What a damned Awakening!!!”
The ability itself suited him perfectly:
[Myth Imbuement].
With an item and a myth, he could create Artifacts without needing rare materials or complicated processes.
But whether he could actually wield them was another matter.
Whoosh—!
A straight punch grazed his cheek, the sting lingering from mere contact.
“Maybe this Awakening is poison for me.”
He couldn’t dodge forever.
But neither could he recklessly create an Artifact.
“The myths in my head are all too grand. If I manifest one carelessly…”
The backlash would crush his mind.
He needed something else—
A myth he could handle, but strong enough to work against Tae-hoon.
“Something within reach…”
His eyes darted around quickly.
Meanwhile, Tae-hoon drew back his arm, charging another straight, this time with far more force.
Even dodging it, the shockwave alone could wreck him.
“…!”
That’s when Se-hyun’s eyes caught on his own left shoe.
“Die, bastard!”
The stone fist, brimming with stellar power, fired forward.
BOOM—!
The ground exploded under its force.
But the fist didn’t hit Se-hyun.
Tae-hoon’s eyes widened as a blue arc streaked through the air above him.
“You… cheap tricks?!”
Se-hyun was soaring high, his shoe glowing with engraved blue light.
Landing lightly, he smiled.
“As I thought!”
What he’d tried on a whim had worked perfectly.
“The myth itself wasn’t the point.”
Yes, every Artifact needed a myth.
Even with his ability, that rule didn’t change.
But to face this guy—
He didn’t need something grand.
Just like with his left shoe, Se-hyun etched another pattern into his right.
Kiiiing—
A second engraving shone across the leather.
His grin deepened.
“So even experience alone can serve as a myth.”
Until now, he’d imagined myths to forge Artifacts.
Against monsters, only stories of epic, mythic scale had sufficed.
But this fight was different.
On his left shoe, he’d engraved the memory of gripping a bat and leaping in an instant.
Just one experience.
Not a myth, but it had anchored, granting tremendous jumping power.
And now, for his right shoe:
The experience of swinging the bat and landing a blow.
“This’ll work!”
One shoe carried the memory of dodging leaps.
The other, the memory of striking blows.
Both experiences fused into his shoes, instantly turning them into Artifacts.
They didn’t shatter—the proof that these “personal myths” were within his capacity.
“Well… ‘personal experiences’ is a better word right now.”
Now, all that was left was to finish the fight.
BOOM—!
Tae-hoon’s stone arm swung again, blazing with stellar power.
But Se-hyun wasn’t there.
Swaak—!
Like a base runner stealing second, he dashed far out of reach, dusting off his shoes with ease.
Confidence radiated from his every movement.
Tae-hoon sneered.
“Ha, so you can move a little faster now. Let’s see how long you last.”
In that instant—
BANG—!
THWACK—!
“Guagh…!”
Tae-hoon’s head snapped more than ninety degrees, his body crashing to the ground.
Se-hyun retracted his leg, landing smoothly.
“Weaker than the bat… must be the leather.”
Still, Tae-hoon staggered up, blood pouring from his nose.
“In that case…”
Tap—!
Smack, smack, smack—!
Before Tae-hoon could regain his stance, Se-hyun struck again and again.
Quick leaps, relentless kicks, hammering only his head.
Dozens, no—hundreds of blows.
Blue arcs filled the air.
“RAAAHH!!! YOU LITTLE SHIT!!!”
Tae-hoon swung wildly with his stone arm.
But it carved nothing but empty space.
Like water wearing down stone, Se-hyun’s strikes steadily ate away at him.
Thud—
At last, Tae-hoon dropped to his knees.
Se-hyun landed lightly, panting hard.
“Hahh… Any longer and I’d have been in danger too.”
He hadn’t taken damage, but the constant use of his ability had pushed him near his limits.
“You bastard… I’ll kill you!!!!”
Tae-hoon screamed, but his body was broken, hardly able to move.
He was in a state fit for the ICU, not for fighting.
“And yet he still has the will to shout… impressive, in a way.”
Se-hyun gave a wry smile, shaking out his hands.
“When were you ever not trying to kill me? Look at you now.”
“Guh…!”
“Or is this the first time you’re being serious?”
For these Players, fighting normal people was just a game.
Tae-hoon hadn’t even lived through the apocalypse yet—just a rookie.
Expecting real conviction from someone like that was absurd.
“Khhuhuhu…”
Was it the ridiculousness of his own state?
Tae-hoon suddenly laughed.
“…You’ve lost it already?”
Se-hyun tilted his head as Tae-hoon sneered.
“Hey, brat. You know this, right?”
“…”
“Players can’t kill other Players. That’s the rule—no fratricide.”
A rule forbidding them from killing each other.
Strange words, coming from the guy who’d been trying to kill him seconds ago.
“Ah… so that’s it.”
Se-hyun nodded.
“You’re saying we end it here?”
Dragging the fight on would only hurt him.
And worse, draw the attention of the Player community.
“Heh… sure, we can end it here. But you know…”
…?
“You know what happens if you break the rule and kill another Player?”
Tae-hoon pulled something from his pocket.
A small crystal shard, small enough to fit in his palm.
“When that happens, they turn into this. Not a scrap of a corpse left behind.”
“…”
Se-hyun recognized it instantly.
He had handled countless of them in his past life while forging Artifacts.
A Soul Stone…
The crystallized essence of existence.
Just like the ones harvested from dead monsters, a Player’s death left behind a Soul Stone.
“…So that’s it.”
At last, the doubt he’d felt earlier was cleared.
The question wasn’t “Why does this bastard have Seong-cheol’s arm?”
It should have been: “How did the arm this bastard had end up with Seong-cheol?”
Seong-cheol once said it himself.
That arm was a curse.
A punishment for failing to save his younger sister.
Back then, Se-hyun never heard the full story.
But now, he could guess.
“…So it was you? You were the one?”
Tae-hoon grinned, continuing.
“What do you think happens if I eat this?”
“…!!”
“Think you could handle it?”
Whoosh—
And with that, he tossed the Soul Stone into his mouth.
