[The effect of the title ‘First Father’ has detected Lord’s crisis.]
[Father’s Instinctive Love is activated. Movement speed is increased by 80% for 20 seconds and the skill cooldown is reset.]
He’d met a woman named Irene. He initially married her with an impure heart and the marriage continued until today.
There were so many memories embedded in Grid’s mind, each one more precious than the other. Lord played a huge role in that.
Images of Lord flashed by like a kaleidoscope. It was fascinating and cute to see him toddling up to him and asking to be held in his arms. The first time Lord called him ‘Dad’, he’d felt awkward and overwhelmed.
He prayed when he saw Lord playing house with Rebecca’s Daughters, who were wielding spears and swords. He was happy watching Lord wield a small hammer in the smithy, and was anxious along with everyone else when Lord went on adventures despite his youth.
Lord proved to be more reliable than expected once he grew up and stood by his father’s side.
He was the most precious being. Grid could never lose him.
Grid looked around. From this moment forward, everything turned hectic.
The group of dragons surrounding Grid was smashed in an instant!
The formation centered around the earthen wall erected by Haranbeka, who used Dragon Words, all collapsed at once.
The lower-ranked dragon, who had been exchanging sword blows with Grid, couldn’t handle the power of the six fusion sword dance. They thought that the ultimate sword dance couldn’t be used for the next 13 minutes, so the moment it was activated, the dragons realized they had made a huge error in their calculations.
Moreover, Grid was exceeding the imposed speed limit. He was fast as lightning as he charged forward and slammed the six fusion sword dance into the earthen wall, felling the lower-ranked dragon. The dragons couldn’t keep up with him properly despite their vision and senses.
Haranbeka, who was blocking the entrance, was so surprised that he even released the Polymorph. He didn’t care about the fact that the lair might collapse and released his full power to block Grid.
However, Grid counter attacked this with ease. He cut off the ‘horn’ on Haranbeka’s head before Haranbeka could reveal his full body. In fact, Grid hadn’t intentionally been aiming for this. The horn just grew at Grid’s eye level. It was unexpected good luck.
This was all thanks to the good luck stat. Of course, Haranbeka had no way of knowing that.
‘What… Was he hiding his skills?’
Haranbeka was shocked.
[Don’t come.]
Just then, Lord’s voice echoed through the space, asking Grid to trust him. Grid suddenly stopped, nodded, and glanced back at the group.
From then on, it was hell.
Haranbeka couldn’t handle the destructive power of the continuous sword dances and lost his last remaining horn. The lower-ranked dragons who tried to rescue him were all reduced to rags.
Grid was the same. He had been fighting all day, and his physical strength was no longer at its peak. This was also because he found himself within an old dragon’s lair. The environment itself was favorable to the dragons, their power strengthened by a strange stream of magic power while intruders were weakened with all types of restrictions.
The dragons, who had been seriously wounded by Grid, gritted their teeth and fought back. This caused Grid’s body to sway precariously. He would’ve collapsed first if it hadn’t been for Nefelina providing him magical cover a few times.
“Grid! Get on me!”
Nefelina rushed from where she was standing on Trauka’s head, but Grid remained still. He was a warrior who had overcome all types of crises. Unless he ran out of dreams or hope, he couldn’t carelessly consume his strongest trump card. He’d saved up the Dragon Knight effect till the end and had dealt with the joint attacks of the dragon group.
‘I have a bad feeling.’
Grid had a hunch. His intuition told him that things wouldn’t work out that easily for him. In his experience, most surprises happened suddenly. Even Lauel, who devised shrewd strategies before doing anything, often suffered failures due to unexpected variables.
In addition, Grid was the type of person who followed his heart rather than his thoughts. He didn’t have a genius brain, so even if he calculated and planned out his strategy, he would suffer a lot of setbacks.
The bottom line was that he didn’t believe in himself. Therefore, he ignored Nefelina’s warning and fought a difficult battle. Shocking news soon came out of the blue, delivered by Revola, who was being carried by Zeratul’s on his back.
“Kubartos…! Kubartos is after Trauka!”
It wasn’t just Grid. Haranbeka’s group was also muttering. Many of the dragons denied the news, saying they couldn’t believe it. Seeing Revola on Zeratul’s back made them see the ice dragon as a traitor.
However, Haranbeka showed faith in Revola.
“Revola isn’t the type to lie…”
The battle paused briefly. This was a golden opportunity for Grid. He took advantage of a player’s skills and various benefits, his recovery speed surpassing even the dragons’.
He secretly turned on meditation and tried for a quick recovery. He was planning to kill Haranbeka, who had lost his horn and was slow to recover.
Just then, Kubartos lost his heart.
Perhaps it was some sort of sensory sharing, but the dragons immediately detected the unusual situation and were stunned. They started questioning what types of tricks Revola had pulled.
“Don’t be suspicious of your own kin. Revola is a great dragon.”
Grid deliberately sided with Revola.
The result was significant. The moment Grid sided with Revola, the angry dragons treated Revola as a complete traitor.
Revoila glared at Grid, shocked, but Grid only smiled back softly. Consequently, the dragons’ suspicions grew and the atmosphere turned ugly.
Step.
Judar, the god of wisdom, arrived at the scene. He was expressionless, like a doll, but his determination was fierce. Zeratul had not yet recovered due to a series of desperate fights and pouring divinity into Biban. Therefore, he was defeated without being able to fight back properly. The same could be said for the other dragons.
On the other hand, Grid’s recovery rate was at roughly seventy percent. However, perhaps due to his shabby appearance, Judar attacked Grid without hesitation.
‘What is with his confidence?’
Zeratul was of great help to the Overgeared Guild. He possessed precise information about some of the gods, and he’d told them that Judar didn’t enjoy fighting. It was said that he rarely engaged in battle directly and only used magic.
Of course, Zeratul warned that Judar’s overall ability was just below that of the old dragons, but that wasn’t enough to threaten Grid. Not even the fact that he had absorbed Kubartos’ heart.
In fact, the hand that Judar swung wasn’t very agile. He was simply fast and strong. He didn’t seem to possess too many combat skills.
Grid responded with a three fusion sword dance that included Revolve. This meant the attack would return back to him. The route that Judar used to attack was so simple that it was easy to target him.
Grid thought he would win more easily than expected. However…
[The effect of the active skill has disappeared.]
The sword dance, which should’ve cut Judar’s hand, had no power. In addition—
[The effect of the equipped items has disappeared.]
The moment Judar’s hand touched the sword, the items Grid was wearing became useless.
‘What?’
Grid felt as if he’d been possessed by a ghost.
‘Is he copying my power?’
The method of making a target’s items useless wasn’t common in the world. Grid briefly suspected that Judar had the ability to copy the opponent’s abilities.
Grid ended up being pushed back several steps. He could clearly feel the touch of Judar’s hand on his bare chest. He avoided a fatal injury thanks to the quick use of the White Tiger’s Posture and his stats redistribution, but a chill still went down his spine.
‘I’m glad I didn’t lose my titles and passive skills.’
Just now, the only effect Grid didn’t receive was the item effect.
[The effect of the equipped items has been restored.]
The item effects were even restored quickly.
Grid completely destroyed the target’s items while Judar temporarily neutralized them. It was clearly an inferior version. He was slightly relieved and tried to analyze Judar’s abilities, but Judar aimed at him again.
Grid was wary that his use of a skill would be canceled, so he countered with a basic hit. Perhaps Judar couldn’t neutralize the basic hits, but Grid easily blocked Judar’s double-handed attacks in succession.
The moment an attack that looked particularly strong came Grid’s way, he turned on his Absolute Defense to increase his defense.
‘Is it currently on cooldown?’
Grid finally got a feel for it after exchanging blows several times with skills mixed in. Judar’s power to make skills and items useless seemed to have a very long cooldown, since the effect was quite fraudulent.
Judar’s left hand was digging into his side. It was an attack that wasn’t different from before, so Grid didn’t bother to activate the Absolute Defense. After several exchanges, he decided that he could handle this type of attack with his pure defense.
However, Judar’s power activated and caught him off guard.
[The effect of the equipped item has disappeared.]
Grid was shocked. He didn’t feel any pain and didn’t actually suffer any damage, but Judar’s hand was piercing his torso.
‘Is it a fluidization type power? Isn’t the cooldown time surprisingly short?’
Grid hurriedly pulled back, but Judar didn’t bother chasing him. He just stared silently with a rather uncomfortable expression.
Thanks to this, Grid didn’t suffer any damage.
Judar murmured, [It is hard to figure out…]
Those were words that Grid wanted to say to Judar.
‘Still, there are results.’
Grid noticed one thing. An opaque curtain had covered Judar’s hand during the first attack and the previous attack. He determined it was a skill effect that only occurred twice. It wasn’t easy to notice because Judar was releasing dark red magic power like an active volcano, but Grid’s insight stat was remarkable.
‘By the way, I’m not sure why I’m fine even though my body was pierced. I don’t know what Judar is up to.’
Just as Grid was pondering on this, a translucent cover unfolded over Judar’s hands. There were three over his left hand and four over his right.
If Grid didn’t activate his Absolute Defense, the left hand would pierce his heart. But if the Absolute Defense was activated, the same would happen if the attack originated from the right hand.
Operating a total of seven dimensions at the same time was a huge effort for Judar, but he had to take on this burden in order to carry out the attack.
‘This is going to be dangerous.’
The moment Judar started the attack, Grid grew significantly more vigilant. He backed away, trying to dodge by activating Shunpo in short strides.
However, he couldn’t shake off Judar. The god of wisdom tracked Grid, paying attention to the direction in which Grid would glance, and used Shunpo at the same time to follow after. Perhaps he had a knack for psychological warfare, but he could easily predict Grid’s actions.
Grid’s anger intensified as the distance between him and Judar became smaller.
‘What is with this bastard?’
He knew Judar’s attacks were strange and powerful, but he couldn’t understand what gave Judar the courage to keep approaching him.
‘What if I dodge that hand and fight back?’
Grid focused his whole strength into a jump.
Judar quickly caught up. Grid accurately dodged the swinging fists and unleashed a fusion sword dance.
“Dragon Revolve Pinnacle!”
Grid’s shadow took the shape of a dark dragon as it pierced Judar’s chest.
[……]
Judar felt Grid’s breath on his face, but he didn’t shrink back.
He advanced and confronted the sword dance head-on. Then Grid’s sword dance was transmitted to another dimension and became ineffective. All that remained was for Judar’s two hands to pierce Grid’s body.
Just then, Grid used Freely Move.
He twisted his body ever so slightly, dodging Judar’s close range attack before focusing all his stat points on strength and unleashing a fusion sword dance. He wanted to use at least a five fusion sword dance, but he had to be satisfied with only merging two sword dances since his opponent was so close.
However, the sword dance was unleashed from the combined Defying the Natural Order and Twilight. Its power would be immense.
The dragon group, who had been letting Revola’s words about helping Grid enter one ear and go out the other, were sad as they watched the battle. They felt a shared pain just thinking about the suffering that Judar would go through.
[Critical!]
[You have attacked the target’s weak point and caused critical damage!]
[…..!!!]
Judar’s expression distorted as he was cut and stabbed by Pinnacle Kill. He gritted his teeth, almost letting out a scream. He was so startled by the great pain that he had to take a few steps back. Then Grid finally spoke to him.
“Is this because you’ve never been hit by me? You are so brave.”
[……]
For a moment, Judar remembered. The fact that many powerful beings surrendered to Grid. The fact that among those who lost their lives to Grid was the 2nd ranked great demon, Amoract.
Grid told him, “If you are going to take my bones, then give me some of your flesh in return. This way, your suffering will be even greater.”
The power of the demon to distort all truth.
Grid’s condition was fairly intact, despite what Judar saw.