The Hero Returns - Chapter 121

Snakilions’ tails curled up. They were willingly lowering their tails and planting their heads on the ground.

“W-what’s going on here?”

“Why aren’t they fighting?”

“I said, go and kill him!”

“What is the meaning of this?”

“I wonder? Those monsters, they are actually bowing their heads…”

The rumblings within the crowd grew noisier and louder.

For sure, this was not a normal development. There had been many warriors capable of overwhelming the monsters, but not once did the monsters lower their heads first to a human being.

That was something only possible for the trainers who used food and torture to tame these creatures for a lengthy amount of time. And quite obviously, it was simply not possible for a sacrificial lamb kidnapped from another nation to be a trainer.

“Are you saying…that the monsters bowed their heads first to a human?”

“Wait, could this be prearranged? Or some kind of an event?”

The crowd looked and murmured amongst themselves. Completely disregarding whether they were doing that or not, Su-hyeun issued an order to the four snakilions.

“Go back. And also…” His next correspondence was aimed at the trainers standing and waiting next to the monster cages. “Go and bring out the rest.”

The trainers’ complexion grew deeply pale after meeting Su-hyeun’s glare, and they hurriedly made their next move. They had plenty of monsters ready to be deployed for the next two rounds.

The snakilions heeded Su-hyeun’s order and returned to the cages. At this rate, it was as if he was their real trainer.

<<The “Predator,” is it?>>

Su-hyeun realized what the third eye’s first ability was while observing the backs of the terrified snakilions following his orders.

<<Not bad.>>

As the name implied, Third Eye’s trait, Predator, was an ability that caused lower-ranked monsters to fall under a terrified state. At a casual glance, it might look like he was just making them scared, but with a closer look, one would realize that this ability was rather like a type of mental control.

It was quite likely that the moment snakilions met Su-hyeun’s glare, they all saw the figure of Ouroboros instead.

<<A useful ability when facing against a large number of weaker monsters. Next up is…>>

Su-hyeun closed his eyes.

Creak, creeeak—

At the same time, thin scales suddenly began sprouting all over his body. They seemed similar to the Imoogi’s scales, yet were incomparably tougher.

Kka-ahk, kka-ah-ahk—!

Kki-eeeeh—!

He could hear them.

He could hear eight monsters being dragged towards this place beyond the steel bars. The number had increased compared to earlier.

However, he simply stood there waiting, his eyes still closed.

Not too long after that, the monsters showed up from beyond the fences and were unleashed onto the Colosseum. Following the orders issued by their trainers, the eight monsters took aim at Su-hyeun and pounced.

He heard the monsters flapping their wings.

<<I can see them.>>

Although he couldn’t see their movements through his eyes, he still vividly sensed them. And he wasn’t even using any special abilities, either — he just knew.

Swiiiish—

The head of a monster swooping in from the side was sliced cleanly off.

Swish—

Swish—

Swish—

Right after cutting down three more monsters, Su-hyeun’s figure floated up in the air.

Bam!

A tough beak crashed into the ground, right where he used to stand only a moment ago.

His foot stomped down on the crown of the monster and crushed its head and the brain at the same time. His muscular strength had become so much stronger after Ouroboros’s power had been added to the mix.

Right then, all of Su-hyeun’s eyes, including the one on his forehead, opened up.

Splaaash—

The remaining four monsters were sliced into pieces, their wings and all.

Clack—

He sheathed his sword and scanned his vicinity.

This time, he got to confirm the physical ability of the Ouroboros’s power. Su-hyeun didn’t use a single drop of magical energy and simply relied on the newly-acquired physical power of the giant snake.

<<It’s already this strong without using Gram.>>

His overall physical abilities had risen up quite high, as well.

With that, he had pretty much confirmed everything he wanted to for the time being. There was only one more ability remaining that Su-hyeun hadn’t analyzed yet.

<<I won’t be able to confirm it while facing these small fries.>>

Su-hyeun swept his gaze over the restless crowd. Then, he discovered a few knights and magicians eyeing him coldly from within. They were not the audience members, but the managers for this Colosseum.

He directed his next words at them. “Are you going to sit back and just watch?”

His provocative question caused a sudden shift in the atmosphere. They had been flustered by the unexpected way this situation had developed, but once Su-hyeun began talking to them, they clearly bared their naked animosity towards him.

“A mere prisoner dares to…?”

“Although rather useful as a distraction, he’ll prove to be an eyesore in the long run.”

They then shot a glare at the monster trainers next. The latter group hurriedly got ready to send out the next wave of monsters.

Su-hyeun lightly tutted and shook his head. “It can’t be helped since you don’t want to come down here.”

His eyes were locked onto the crowd looking down at him from the Colosseum’s audience seats. Their hostile eyes, united under the banner of their empire, were glaring right back at him.

These bastards were toying with the lives of the prisoners, including Su-hyeun’s, just because they came from different sides of the borders.

“I shall give you five minutes, starting from now. Those who want to run, run. Those who want to fight, come at me.”

His voice might have been small, but it spread out to the rest of the Colosseum clearly.

A lone man was actually issuing a challenge to the empire’s greatest form of entertainment, the Colosseum, which was basically a fortress in its own right.

“This cannot be allowed to continue on.”

Swiiish—

One of the knights leaped off a dozens-meters tall wall and landed lightly before Su-hyeun. Judging by how easy it was for this man to jump off from there, he must’ve been pretty highly skilled. Or perhaps he was in possession of magical abilities of some kind.

“A mere prisoner daring to lecture and threaten us, now that’s a sight to behold. We wished to bestow upon you the honor of becoming the noble empire’s source of joy before you died, but….”

“Four minutes.” Su-hyeun completely disregarded the knight and just stood there while continuing on with his countdown. “You now have four minutes left.”

“You stinking son of a…”

Pissed off after realizing that he had been roundly ignored, the knight began gritting his teeth.

He roughly yanked his sword out and pointed the weapon at Su-hyeun. Only then did the latter glance at the knight.

“I, Coltman, the Vice-Captain of the Moline Empire’s Royal Guards, will…!”

Hissss—

Suddenly, a deeply chilling hiss could be heard coming from somewhere.

Coltman was shocked out of his skull and he hurriedly looked around. However, he couldn’t identify the source of that chilling hiss.

<<Just what was…>>

It was right then, Coltman felt a creeping chill run down his spine and raised his head.

HISSSS—

Then, he saw the eyes of a massive snake.

Coltman’s legs almost gave up and he nearly plopped down on his backside just then.

“Ah, w-wuaaaah…?”

A gigantic snake had completely wrapped around the entirety of the Colosseum. As if it was looking down on the tasty little treats, the monster was glaring at him as well as every audience member.

This spectacle hadn’t been witnessed only by Coltman alone, however. Everyone currently inside the Colosseum had fallen into the same hallucination as him.

“U-uwaaaah!”

“R-run away!”

“It’s a monster!”

Countless people tried to escape the structure at the same time.

“D-do not escape! Where do you think you’re going?”

Coltman belatedly shook off the effects of the hallucination and cried out in an urgent voice.

Unfortunately for him, the panicking crowd wasn’t going to heed his orders in the first place. After falling deep into confusion and fear, they lost themselves to the singular thought of wanting to escape.

Still, quite a few of the empire’s knights and some magicians remained behind in the Colosseum. They somehow managed to overcome their fear. It seemed that the effects of Su-hyeun’s skill didn’t influence them too strongly.

“T-trainer!” Coltman urgently called out to a trainer shivering away inside the cage. “Bring out every monster inside, now! Hurry and kill that bastard!”

“If-if we do that, then controlling them will become impossible….”

“I’ll take full responsibility. Hurry up!”

Coltman remained adamant despite the trainer’s reply. His head was filled with thoughts of suppressing Su-hyeun as quickly as possible.

If left alone, he thought that Su-hyeun would pose an even greater danger. He also felt that the latter’s sharp blade would slice right into the frightened knight’s neck, and he just couldn’t stay still and do nothing.

“One minute.”

Still not giving a damn, Su-hyeun stood there and observed Coltman’s and the trainer’s actions. He didn’t forget to count down the remaining time, of course. The thing was, though, five minutes weren’t nearly enough for the terrified crowd to escape from this place.

Sure enough, the promised time of five minutes was up when only about half of the audience had managed to evacuate.

Kiiiaaaaah!

Krrr, krrrrr—

Shiiiii—

With perfect timing, all sorts of colorful howls and screeches could be heard coming out from the interior of the Colosseum. Those noises were coming from the countless monsters currently locked away within the building by the empire for the purpose of today’s event.

The trainers had undone the shackles that tied these monsters down.

“C-calm down and slowly follow… Aaaaahk!”

“Dammit, as expected with these numbers, they aren’t listening to our commands anymore!”

“S-save me! Aaahck!”

“Run!”

Monsters let loose at the same time no longer stayed obedient. They howled out joyously, having finally regained their freedom after enduring years of forced confinement and taming attempts.

Ku-rururung—

Monsters began pouring out from inside the Colosseum next.

At the same time, the empire’s knights and magicians easily numbering a few hundred quickly surrounded Su-hyeun.

Despite losing the trainers, Coltman remained triumphant. Although the thought of taking responsibilities later worried him, right now he believed that this much fighting power would be able to frighten Su-hyeun.

“And so, what will you do now?”

“Is this everyone?” Su-hyeun asked. He remained still despite going over his time limit, but finally, he unsheathed his sword.

In the meantime, hundreds of monsters filled the Colosseum and even more continued to pour outside from the structure’s bowels.

However, something strange was happening here. Monsters that should have been rampaging out of control were all obediently waiting around.

“This is perfect. Perfect,” said Su-hyeun with a deep smirk.

The trial’s goal was to bring down the Colosseum. He was now thinking that he’d be passing this floor far, far easier and quicker than he initially predicted. Not only that, but his new trait was also proving to be very satisfactory as well.

“What are you all waiting for? Hurry up and come at me.”

Su-hyeun swept his gaze at the surrounding knights and magicians, then beckoned at them.

His displaying such a relaxed air when he should’ve been scared silly caused Coltman’s anger to shoot up to the top of his head. The knight roared out loudly.

“Magicians! Get ready to fire!”

Coltman had fought in many theaters of war for over ten-plus years, so he was able to issue the correct command despite how agitated he was.

The monsters were currently not in a controlled state, yet for some reason, they weren’t making any moves. Also, Su-hyeun was a swordsman. Coltman’s side boasted a good balance of knights and magicians. In that case, he needed to use magic first and inflict some damage before initiating the actual assault.

Woong, woooong, buzzzz—

Over one hundred magicians gathered their magical powers in a single spot and drew a massive magic circle in the air.

Several elemental attributes were overlapped on top of one another. This magic was solely focused on firepower rather than any other special side effects.

Su-hyeun had some knowledge when it came to matters of magic. Obviously it wasn’t to the levels of the dedicated awakeners, but he had seen enough while traversing through various worlds.

And that was why he could tell how powerful the magic circle currently being drawn up actually was.

“Commence attack!”

According to Coltman’s hand signal, the magic circle emitted bright light in an instant.

Flash!

The blinding flash of light enveloped Su-hyeun. It was a man-killing magic created by one hundred-plus magicians pooling their magical energy. Its power was more than enough to completely blow away a regular-sized mansion.

However, Su-hyeun didn’t dodge and simply gathered his own magical energy.

[Third Eye – Neutralization]