After Junhyuk got used to the bright light, he checked out how much money he had: 446,760G.

In the last battle, he had spend a lot of money, and although he had earned some more, he had less than what he had started with. In exchange, his equipment was better than ever before.

Junhyuk heard the soft announcement voice.

[We will skip the explanation on the Swamp of Despair by your request. The reward for this round is very cool, and it does not happen often. It is a random gold bag. The amount of gold within it is random, so do your best to win.]

A bag of gold. The problem was that there was no minimum. He could get very little gold from it, or there might not even be any gold at all within it.

“They wouldn’t do that to me.”

He would be with Sarang, and they would do their best to win.

[Champion Junhyuk Lee deployed.]

When he walked outside, he saw the lizardmen kneeling ahead of him, and he thought that Gongon had made them do that like he always did, but when he raised his head to look for Gongon, he was shocked by what he saw.

“Ah! So cute!”

Sarang was hugging the hatchling, and Gongon couldn’t move. Gongon looked at Junhyuk and asked, “What is this human?”

Junhyuk let out a small sigh and walked toward them. Sarang, who was hugging the immobile Gongon, greeted him with her eyes.

“Big brother, why is Gongon so cute?!”

‘Cute? Gongon is a dragon, a type of reptile. However, Gongon’s scales are warm, so he’s different from other reptiles.’

After a sigh, Junhyuk said, “Just like you said, she is human, and a newly-evolved champion.”

Gongon tried hard to get away from her, but she wouldn’t let him get away. So, the dragon gave up, loosened his arms and asked, “Do you know this human?”

“She has been with me through many battlefields.”

Gongon wrapped her arm with his tail and loosened her grip on him. Then, he stood in front of her and stared at her.

“Your skills?”

“Trustworthy.”

“Your powers?”

Junhyuk gave Gongon a short summary of them, “An electric blast that paralyzes the opponents, ma.s.s healing, and a Thunderstorm. Those are her three powers.”

“I understand the electric blast, but ma.s.s healing?” Gongon looked at her, chuckled and added, “Even I can’t use healing magic here. She is quite a unique human.”

Junhyuk had also not seen anyone else with healing magic.

In deep thought, Gongon murmured, “This place has many species with each dimension sending their own beings. It’s hard to believe that she can heal all those different beings. Is it an absolute heal?”

Once done, Gongon raised his head and extended a hand to Sarang, “In any event, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Gongon.”

“I am Sarang Kim.”

Gongon had extended his short claw forward, and Sarang took hold of it. Then, she forcefully pulled Gongon toward herself and hugged him.

“So cute!”

Junhyuk sighed and said, “In any event, Gongon…”

“What?”

“Can you solo the upper path this time? I want to take the lower path with her if that’s OK.”

After some thought, Gongon said, “Do it.”

“Thanks,” Junhyuk responded, smiling.

“Don’t be grateful.” Gongon clasped his hands and asked, “You fought against legend candidates, right?”

“Yes, and they became legends after the last battle.”

“That’s sad. I wanted to fight them.”

Shaking his head, Junhyuk said, “You don’t want to fight them. I had never died that many times before.”

Gongon laughed out loud and said, “You can never tell with dimensions. There are many strong ones.”

Junhyuk smiled bitterly and said, “This time, they are giving out gold, so let’s do our best.”

“A gold bag, right?” Gongon smirked.

That didn’t make Junhyuk feel good. Gongon was already extremely lucky to be born in possession of all sorts of things, and his existence made Junhyuk curious. He couldn’t compare himself to the dragon. That was the kind of luck Gongon had been born with.

Still, Junhyuk didn’t feel that bad about his own luck, so he said, “Then, let’s get going.”

“Should I kill one and then head toward the swamp?”

“Yes, head to the swamp after you’ve killed someone.”

Gongon waved at Junhyuk, who turned to Sarang.

“Let’s go.”

He called up the lizardmen and prepared thirty of them to move out. Sarang was still hugging Gongon, not wanting to let him go.

“We can’t give up a tower. Let’s go.”

Sarang felt very guilty and finally let the hatchling go. The dragon signaled to the lizardmen, and when one got close to him, Gongon got up on his shoulders. Then, he waved his short claws at the two other champions.

“See you at the swamp.”

“See you later.”

When Gongon started riding on the lizardman, Junhyuk thought it was a great idea that he should have come up with before, but that was all in the past.

The hatchling had given him the bracelets, so he couldn’t be stingy about giving him piggyback rides.

Junhyuk headed out with Sarang, and as she left the castle, she looked at the walls around the paths. She thought the flame walls were strange.

“We don’t have a power that can push the enemy to the walls, so they’re not of much use to us. But be careful not to get pushed by the enemy.”

After some thought about it, she asked, “If we go this way, who’ll we meet?”

“Probably Kraken and Nid. Nid is a member of the Elidra tribe, and he’s well balanced,” he answered.

“Then, who should we attack?”

“Kraken’s defense is rather high, so we should focus on Nid.”

Nid was bothersome, but the allies could kill him.

“Paralyze him first, then drop a Thunderstorm on him.”

“But the range of the electric blast is shorter than the Thunderstorm.”

Junhyuk thought it over and said, “I’ll use the Spatial Slash first to draw the enemies in. Then, use your Thunderstorm.”

The Thunderstorm only lasted for a moment, so unless the enemy had some sort of protective barrier, they wouldn’t be able to escape the attack. Sarang agreed with his plan.

They talked about the details of their plan while they walked, until they got to the tower.

Junhyuk saw Kraken and Nid on the other side, just like he had expected. If Kilraden had been there, Sarang would have needed to be extra careful. She was wearing armor, but it wouldn’t hold for long against Kilraden’s attacks.

Junhyuk patted her back and said, “Let’s go.”

The enemies were coming out of the tower, walking with pride, and he frowned. He knew his equipment was superior to theirs in both defense and attack.

As he stepped forward, Sarang followed him carefully. Sarang knew that heroes had fought for her before, but now she was the main character of her own fight, and she could feel the weight of that.

Junhyuk shrugged and said, “I’m much stronger this time. Don’t worry so much.”

“Sure.”

He wanted to test his powers. Kraken was at the front, and the enemies were coming toward him, so he smiled.

“Things will be different this time!”

“You sound so full of yourself,” Nid said, but Kraken stepped in front of him.

“Don’t get too excited. Just win.”

Kraken extended its tentacles forward and got up on them. The octopus was heading toward them, and Nid followed right behind.

“Our target is Nid. Don’t forget,” Junhyuk said.

After he did, he ran forward. Junhyuk was planning on placing his enemies within the range of his Spatial Slash, and Sarang gathered her breath and ran after him.

Sarang had decided to trust herself. If he got himself in danger, she had to heal him, and to slamm the Thunderstorm on her enemies, she had to follow behind him.

Junhyuk swung the Frozen Rune Sword, and Kraken and Nid thought it was the Spatial Slash. One dove left and the other right, moving instinctively, as if they had been training together. However, hadn’t gotten quite ten meters apart from each other.

Junhyuk used the Spatial Slash on Nid, curious to know how much its damage had increased. The power sliced through Nid’s neck, and a shockwave extended from the point of impact. The results were surprising. That single strike had taken 55 percent off of Nid’s health.

“Ugh!!”

More than half of Nid’s health was gone, and with Nid being a balanced champion, Junhyuk thought his power would work well against heroes as well.

Junhyuk was ecstatic, when suddenly, lightning bolts cracked down from the sky. Nid had a pierced neck, and the bolts were crashing against his head.

Craaaack!

As the blue lightning struck Nid, a bed of lightning extended from him across the ground. The Thunderstorm’s damage was outstanding.

“Argh! What is this?!” Nid shouted, charred to a crisp, his body already fading.

[Sarang killed Nid.]

Junhyuk knew his damage had increased, but he learned just how much greater her damage was.

Kraken stopped and stared at them both in shock. Scared, the octopus started running away.

The shockwave from his Spatial Slash had taken 20 percent of Kraken’s health, and the bed of lightning had taken another 10 percent.

Kraken didn’t have a chance if it were to fight them alone. On top of it all, it had already lost 30 percent of its health, so it was running away. Even though Kraken was tanky, it was at a disadvantage by itself.

Junhyuk smirked at Kraken, and Sarang started to run after the octopus, but he stopped her.

“Wait.”

“Why?”

“We’ll move after the Spatial Slash returns.”

With the Spatial Slash, Junhyuk would be able to hit Kraken for 40 percent of its health. He was planning to follow the Spatial Slash with the Thunderstorm, and together, they would deal at least 70 percent of damage to Kraken’s health, so it would be easy to kill the octopus.

Sarang nodded and moved next to him, exhaling heavily.

“By the way, the Thunderstorm is really something else.”

“It was a critical hit.”

“That happens sometimes.”

The bolts of lightning were really fast, so naked eyes could barely see them appearing. Her electric blast was also very fast, so naked eyes couldn’t really follow it. That’s why heroes were often hit by it.

Therefore, because the Thunderstorm’s lightning crashed down really fast, enemies couldn’t escape it. On top of that, the damage was absurd. It was smaller than his Spatial Slash, but only by a little, and she wasn’t as well equipped as him.

On the Champions’ Battlefield, if the two combined their powers, they could kill anyone. Both attacks were nearly impossible to dodge, and now, Junhyuk was well aware of how dangerous their combination was.

Kraken was standing next to the tower, not moving. The octopus was planning on using the tower’s archers, and the lizardmen were taking the vanguard, ahead of it in the formation.

The lizardmen were thirty meters from the tower and waiting.

Junhyuk smirked at Kraken’s preparations. To him, the Spatial Slash could not be dodged.

An image of Gongon showed up out of nowhere.

“You killed one already? So cool!”

“If you had seen it happen, you would’ve been shocked.”

“I’ll kill mine and join you.”

Kilraden could deal a lot of damage, but Gongon had both great defense and great attack. The hatchling had the advantage, so Junhyuk smiled and said, “Let’s find out who gets the kills first.”

The Spatial Slash’s cooldown was over, and Junhyuk looked at Sarang.

“Let’s go fish ourselves an octopus.”