Lucian was bored.
Not the kind of bored you feel on a rainy Sunday, but the kind of bored that comes from being so strong that nothing in the world can hurt you anymore.
He sat in his big, empty mansion, staring at the blue screen floating in front of his face. He'd seen it a million times.
[ STATUS ]
Name: [Lucian]
Level: 1000
Rank: [SSS]
Attributes: [999+] in everything.
Luck: [01]
He scrolled past his display of titles and abilities.
"Still no luck," Lucian muttered, rubbing his eyes.
He had everything. He was the only SSS-Rank human alive. He had the money, the fame, and the power to level a mountain with a simple kick. But mostly, he just wanted a nap.
He was halfway through reading a webnovel about a guy who grows rice for a living when his phone started ringing. It was a red alert.
"Sir! A portal just opened in the city! It's an SSS-Rank! Everything is dying!" the voice on the other end shouted.
Lucian sighed. He stood up, summoned his long black sword—an odachi—and tossed it over his shoulder. He didn't put on fancy gear; he just wore his usual dark armor and tied his long hair back in a messy knot.
"I'm coming," he said. "Keep your shirts on."
A few minutes later, he was standing in the middle of a disaster zone. The sky was torn open. A giant, swirling purple hole was sucking up cars and trees like a vacuum. The wind was so strong that the Elite hunters behind him were hugging the ground just to stay alive.
Lucian didn't even feel the breeze. He looked at the S-Rank hunters behind him. They were supposed to be the best.
'Not even one SS-Rank,' he thought, shaking his head. 'Useless.'
"Stay back," Lucian told them. "If you go in there, you'll turn into a pancake in five seconds. I'll go clean this up. Don't touch my stuff while I'm gone."
He didn't wait for an answer. He walked straight into the scary, black vortex. He didn't look like a hero saving the world; he looked like a guy going to work on a Monday morning.
The portal swallowed him whole.
As soon as he disappeared into the portal, one of the female hunters dressed in golden armor asked her teammates, "What stuff should we not touch?"
****
Inside the portal, the world was a mess of floating rocks and red light. Blood was everywhere.
Fortunately, it wasn't human blood. The floor was littered with the bodies of monsters that looked like a bad mix of a giant tiger and a spider. They had eight legs, orange fur, and way too many eyes.
Lucian didn't move a muscle. He just stood there with his odachi on his shoulder. A few of the spider-tigers hissed and lunged at him, but before they could even get close, they hit an invisible wall of pressure and popped like overfilled balloons.
[ S-Rank Monster 'Tiger-Spider Stalker' Slain. ]
[ S-Rank Monster 'Tiger-Spider Stalker' Slain. ]
[ S-Rank Monster 'Tiger-Spider Stalker' Slain. ]
... 47 more notifications minimized.
[ Total EXP Gained: 1,400,000 ]
[ Notice: You are at Max Level. 400,000 EXP has been converted into Coins. ]
[ 40,000 Coins Earned. ]
They were just S-Rank monsters. He didn't even have to swing his sword to kill them; his aura alone was enough to do the job.
After a few minutes, the area was quiet. The massacre was over. Lucian had spent the whole time leaning against a large glowing gem, waiting for the weaklings to stop spawning. He stood up, stretched his back until it popped, and looked toward the end of the dark hallway.
A set of massive stone doors stood there. They were covered in glowing runes that pulsed like a heartbeat.
"Alright," Lucian yawned. "Let's see what the boss looks like."
He walked to the doors. He placed one hand on the stone and pushed. The massive gates screamed as they were forced open, revealing a giant room that looked like an old, dark cathedral with rigid red runes and floating glass.
At the far end, something huge was waiting. It was a giant knight made of stardust and black metal. It held a mace that was bigger than a house. As soon as Lucian stepped in, the Sentinel let out a roar that made the entire dungeon shake.
[ SSS RANK World-Eater Sentinel ]
The monster lunged. It was fast—so fast that a normal person wouldn't even see it move. Its giant mace came down toward Lucian's head with enough power to crack the planet.
Lucian didn't move. He didn't even draw his sword.
"Sit," Lucian said.
[ ACTIVE ABILITY: SOUL DOMINATION AND SOUL WILL ENGAGED ]
[Soul Domination activated. (100 Mana consumed)]
[Soul Will activated. (100 Mana consumed)]
His eyes flashed. A massive wave of blue energy hit the Sentinel. In an instant, Lucian dived into the monster's soul and dumped a huge amount of his own soul will into it, making the monster feel a sense of dread and fear.
The result was creepy. The giant monster froze mid-air. Its mace stopped an inch away from Lucian's face. The flames in its eyes stopped flickering. The Sentinel was still conscious, but its soul was so heavy it couldn't move a single finger.
"You're too loud," Lucian muttered.
He finally reached for the handle of his odachi.
[ MAIN ABILITY: WEAPON WILL: INFINITE EDGE ]
[Infinite Edge Activated. (500 Mana consumed)]
By the time the Sentinel regained its senses, it was already too late. Thousands of glowing, spectral swords appeared in the air all around it. They pointed at the monster from every angle, humming with a sharp, terrifying energy.
"Bye," Lucian said. He snapped his fingers.
The swords moved. There was no loud explosion, just a soft sound repeated a thousand times. The Sentinel didn't even have time to scream before it was sliced into tiny cubes.
Lucian sheathed his sword and turned around, ready to go home. "Ten minutes. Not bad."
[ SSS-RANK BOSS KILLED: WORLD-EATER SENTINEL ]
[ 10,000,000 Mana Restored via Soul Siphon ]
But then, the floor vanished.
[ ERROR: LUCK 01 DETECTED ]
[ SYSTEM GLITCH: DIMENSIONAL COLLISION ]
"Wait, what?" Lucian gasped as a bright white light blinded him. Out of nowhere, the sound of a loud horn echoed through the void.
HONK! HONK!
Before he could react, something big and heavy hit him at sixty miles per hour. It was a truck. In the middle of a magical portal!
"A truck?! In a portal?!"
"You've got to be kidding m—"
Everything went black.