Boom! Boom! Boom!

The sound of a collapsing building echoed, and a building really did collapse.

‘What a barbaric fellow.’

Pride jumped off the cliff and hopped toward Seo Jun-Ho, trampling on the rooftops of the buildings. Every building he stepped on subsequently collapsed.

"What do you think?" asked the Frost Queen.

"He probably has a skill that strengthens his muscles or increases his weight,” Seo Jun-Ho muttered as he saw Pride approaching.

A building wouldn’t collapse just from a person’s weight.

Boooom!

In the end, Pride managed to appear in front of Seo Jun-Ho and sharply stared at him.

"Hmm? Ah... Hmm?"

Pride tilted his head and made strange noises. He then touched his chin and asked, "You, aren’t you Seo Jun-Ho? The guy Kal Signer was after."

"I guess I’ve become famous, seeing that there's not a fiend who doesn't recognize me anymore.”

"Huh? Huhu... Hahahahaha!" Pride bent backward and laughed with his hands on his stomach. "Now I know. Now, I understand why the end of the kids who got involved with you had always been so unpleasant.”

It was because Seo Jun-Ho was hiding such a skill. It was an elemental skill powerful enough to freeze an entire space in an instant. On top of that, it wasn’t among the four common attributes of fire, water, wind, and earth. It was ice.

"But you’re unlucky." Pride grinned. With such a coveted and interesting skill in his sight, Seo Jun-Ho’s luck had run out. "Wait, come to think of it, you’re Specter’s proxy, right?"

To become a leader, you would have to use your head to some extent. The moment Pride connected Seo Jun-Ho and his ice skill, he remembered Specter and his comrades.

"Then you must have melted the 5 Heroes.”

“…”

Seo Jun-Ho looked annoyed. This was why he had hesitated and thought over and over about revealing his skill. He didn't want to give the fiends any room or clues to dig around.

'But I couldn't help it...’

The level of fiends he was dealing with had begun to change. It meant it was no longer possible to deal with them using only physical abilities and ordinary skills. He had finally hit the point where he had to use one of his main skills, either darkness or frost.

‘I shouldn’t regret when I already made the decision.’

He had to move forward without looking back. Seo Jun-Ho raised his head and faced Pride.

"You have a lot of questions."

"I have many questions." Pride moved slowly. He walked in a circle with Seo Jun-Ho at the center. "But we will have plenty of time to talk when we get to the Association."

"I don't remember saying I was going."

"You will end up going." Pride said, standing in place. "Because that's what I decided."

"You act recklessly without knowing your own place, do you hear that a lot?"

"Haha, I used to hear that quite a lot.” Pride admitted coolly. "But not anymore. I have beaten them all to death.”

He was very proud when he spoke. A fiend’s mindset was completely different from that of ordinary people.

"Well, I think we've probed each other enough. Shall we start?” said Pride.

As Pride said, they had both probed each other during their short conversation.

‘He’s strong.’

Pride was definitely strong. He was stronger than in Jang Seon-Ho's memory.

‘This is the power of a squadron leader of the Fiend Association…’

But there were existences known as executives in the Fiend Association who could kill fiends like Pride with one finger.

Seo Jun-Ho asked, "How does your strength rank in the Fiend Association?"

Pride hesitated at the question and stroked his chin. "Hmm…”

It wasn't an expression of him calculating how strong he was. To explain, he looked like he was thinking about whether to say it or not.

"I'll tell you one thing." Pride made a decision and spoke, "There’s something known as a ranking among you guys, right?"

The Player ranking was an interesting system that placed the strength of the top ten thousand people in order. A new ranking was announced every year, and the person who enacted it was the Sage of the Observatory Tower. Even though Players who didn’t make the rankings often denied it and said that the Sage had gone senile, most Players widely accepted this ranking system.

"Yes..."

"There are many foolish Players who believe in that old man of the Observatory Tower who announces it, right?” The smirking Pride shook his head. "We’re different. It’s a system where you fight for real and the winner moves up the ranks."

It was a method that really suited the fiends.

"37th place." Pride had a proud look. "Out of all the fiends that exist in the world, I am the 37th strongest."

“…”

So he was the 37th. Seo Jun-Ho’s mind quickly turned.

‘Including the Heavenly Demon, seven executives, and seven Squadron leaders, there are only 15 people.’

If so, it meant that there were strong people in the Fiend Association, even if they were not a leader. In addition, it also meant that there were at least 22 of such people in the Fiend Association.

‘I got good information.’

The rest would be taken out of Pride’s memory after Seo Jun-Ho had gotten rid of him. When Seo Jun-Ho's eyes changed, Pride smiled lightly with a ‘ho.’

"You have a good look in your eyes. If you were a fiend, I would have made you one of my Squadron members… Do you have any thoughts of becoming a fiend right now?"

"Get lost."

"That's harsh."

Pride chuckled as he lightly turned his right arm.

Boong, boong.

For a moment, the wind was split after a scary sound.

‘It's coming…’

Seo Jun-Ho lightly held out his hands. He gently received the pot lid-sized fist approaching him and bent it sideways.

"Grappling? Sorry, but it doesn't work on me."

"Tsk…"

Seo Jun-Ho lightly clicked his tongue. He had no idea what was going on with that body, because even though he was forcing it to turn, it wouldn’t turn. This meant that a huge amount of muscle was supporting Pride’s arm.

‘That's too bad. Grappling is the best against a barbaric guy who just believes in strength.’

Seo Jun-Ho’s attack failed, but his heart felt lighter.

‘I'll just have to fight imagining it’s against Rahmadat.’

The muscular strength of the man called the 'King of Destruction' was beyond imagination. Of course, grappling didn’t work on him either.

‘Of course, at that time, I used the Watchguard of Darkness to subdue him…’

Now, that would be replaced by Frost.

Craaackle!

Seo Jun-Ho froze the air around him. To be precise, the water in the air was frozen.

"Hooo!"

Pride was curiously looking at the elemental skill up close, but he suddenly flinched. The ice in the air instantly froze Pride’s body. Of course, that alone was absolutely impossible to constrain his movements.

“…”

But one thing had definitely changed...

'My reaction is slow.’

The body would usually immediately perform the command coming from the brain, but now, there was a slight delay. To speak in computer terms, it was a kind of lag. Of course, the difference wasn’t that huge. It was only a delay of about 0.01 seconds.

‘It's uncomfortable.’

It was a subtle delay that ordinary people wouldn't even notice, but it was very uncomfortable for someone at Pride’s level.

"My interest in your little tricks has dimmed."

Pride expressed disappointment as his eyes flashed red. At the same time…

Woong! 

Keen Intuition alerted Seo Jun-Ho to danger.

‘What? What changed?’

Nothing had visibly changed. While Seo Jun-Ho was on edge, Pride crouched down.

"In the tutorial... Hmm, this should be about right.”

What Pride lifted from the wet floor was a stone about the size of three people’s heads. He had picked up a huge stone that rolled over when the building collapsed, and he slowly threw it up.

"A serve pose?"

Seo Jun-Ho tensed up. Pride had usually assumed a pose commonly used to serve in volleyball. Usually, the next thing that would come after it was...

‘A spike!’

Seo Jun-Ho slightly twisted his body. He took on a posture that would allow him to avoid the ball and run either left or right whenever he wanted.

"Heeeuup!"

Paaaaak!

Pride's palm struck the falling stone. Surprisingly, however, the stone stopped in the air and stayed still. Once again, Pride slapped the stone with his palm.

"Heeeeuuup!"

Paaaak!

The stone didn’t budge, again. Seo Jun-Ho's eyes trembled.

‘What the hell is that?’

Despite his massive combat experience, Seo Jun-Ho couldn't figure out what kind of skill that was or what Pride was doing. Rather, Seo Jun-Ho’s brilliant battle sense shouted at him that this was his chance and that he should launch a preemptive strike.

‘Let’s observe for now...’

In the end, Seo Jun-Ho's prudence was right.

Swwweeeeeeeh!

There was a sound that couldn’t have come from the huge stone.

“…?!”

At the same time, Seo Jun-Ho's left arm reflexively moved forward.

Booom!

Seo Jun-Ho’s face distorted when he deflected the flying stone.

‘Damn it.’

Seo Jun-Ho felt a great deal of pain from his throbbing wrist. He had only deflected a flying stone, but his body still suffered injuries despite being strengthened by Overclocking.

“One of my skills is to accumulate energy in objects and make them burst. When I make the condensed energy explode, it's amplified several times more than before."

Tuk, tuk.

Picking up some stones and suspending them in the air, Pride struck them one by one. He struck them quite hard, but the stones didn't budge.

"… You shouldn’t be able to fix the stones in the air just by accumulating and making them burst,” probed Seo Jun-Ho.

"That's a good question, but you have to listen to the end. Didn’t I say it was one of my skills?"

Ttak.

As soon as Pride flicked his finger, stones shot toward Seo Jun-Ho with various trajectories. Seo Jun-Ho hurriedly avoided them and frowned.

"It's not just accumulating and making the stored energy burst."

"Oh, did you notice?" Pride had a filthy smile. "Yes, I can control the momentum of the objects around me at will."

“…!”

Just one of those skills would be tricky to deal with, but Pride actually had two.

‘Let's think…’

The moment Seo Jun-Ho started thinking about how to deal with that skill, Pride spoke up, "That's the expression of someone in contemplation."

“…”

Pride chuckled. He had a look of superiority as if Seo Jun-Ho was in the palm of his hand.

"Sorry, but you don't have to contemplate too much."

Pride opened his Inventory and hundreds of balls popped out from the inside. They weren’t big. They were black balls the size of a tennis ball at best.

"Contractor, those balls...?”

The Frost Queen spoke as she noticed something.

Tong, tong, tong, tong.

The balls from the Inventory were bouncing on the floor. Seo Jun-Ho didn’t know what the balls were made of, but they seemed very elastic as their bouncing height only lowered after bouncing at least seven times.

"You won't have time to think from now on."

Pride lightly stepped forward. Then, the hundreds of balls rose in the air at once and stopped. A corner of Pride’s lips curled up as he shouted, "Fuze!"

With the cry, Seo Jun-Ho felt the flow of another fiend’s demonic energy. At the same time, his expression stiffened.

‘This is.'

Seo Jun-Ho could feel that a transparent wall in the shape of a pentagon had been built around himself and Pride.

"Now, do you understand?" Pride asked as he threw and caught a ball. "From now on, your opponent is not me."

He threw the ball casually and declared, "These balls will be your opponents, and they won’t stop until you die."