Chapter 375: Using an Enemy’s Misfortune

After undergoing the baptism of darkness, Joo Joowon could now be certain that the other party had indeed mutated. Furthermore, he had mutated earlier than the other players.

His body had mutated first, and his mind had then been affected by the special event [Revival of the Darkness]. At this point, whether the other party was still human or had become a monster was a question that needed to be treated with a big question mark.

This made Joo Joowon feel little to no guilt about making use of the other party. He could simply consider it a way of putting trash to good use.

Previously, everyone had been separated by the ’internet’. Whether they had gotten into conflicts online or had hit it off at first sight, all they could do was sigh with longing from afar. After all, most forms of transportation could no longer be used in the current world.

Joo Joowon, however, was different. He could genuinely ’crawl’ through the internet connection and reach the other party.

As far as Joo Joowon was concerned, this person was even easier to make use of than Seong Seungmin.

For someone with the Harbinger of Endless Misfortune, if the people around him had never been involved in any conflict with him, then those who were affected by his misfortune could only be considered unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire. They had simply been unfortunate enough to encounter a person who brought calamity wherever he went. Under normal circumstances, the misfortunes they experienced would amount to little more than minor troubles.

However, those who harbored malice toward him were different. They were the primary targets of the Fate Star’s attention.

The misfortune they suffered was not the ordinary kind, such as stepping in dog poop while going out or getting caught by their boss the moment they arrived late to work. Those were the kinds of bad luck that would merely make someone complain that nothing had been going well lately.

Instead, their misfortune would remain hidden and dormant under normal circumstances. Once it erupted, however, it would become a deadly calamity that came straight for their lives.

Looking at it from this perspective, possessing the Harbinger of Endless Misfortune did not seem like such a bad thing. As long as the person had no one or anything holding them back, it seemed they could live like the protagonists in novels, with their lives practically on cheat mode as they soared to the top.

However, this was a very mistaken way of thinking.

In reality, people with the Harbinger of Endless Misfortune could only turn danger into safety. Whether they could truly be considered lucky was another matter entirely.

Take an airplane accident, for example. Everyone aboard the plane died, and you were the only survivor. However, you were left permanently disabled as a result.

In the eyes of others, surviving such a disaster was undoubtedly a stroke of luck. But from the survivor’s perspective, would they truly want this kind of luck?

At least Joo Joowon would not.

Before meeting Byeol, who had become his emotional support, whenever he encountered such situations, he had only one thought: Why am I always so unlucky? Why do I have to go through all these terrible things? I might as well be dead!

Besides, when fortune was on your side, even Heaven and Earth would lend you their strength. When fortune abandoned you, even a hero would find himself powerless.

The power a person possessed through their Fate was limited. Every time they relied on their Fate to accomplish something, their own fortune would diminish a little. If they grew accustomed to using their Fate to solve every problem, then once all that power was gone, how much strength would they have left that truly belonged to them?

Unless the person had already grown powerful enough to suppress these consequences by the time their fortune ran out, they would inevitably suffer the fate of someone who drowned in the very waters they knew how to navigate.

However, this did not mean Joo Joowon would avoid using his Fate out of fear of the consequences. That was never going to happen. He would simply save this power for critical moments and find ways to replenish it afterward.

During his growth, Joo Joowon had accumulated quite a few enemies. However, those who had reached the point where they wanted to kill him or whom he considered completely undeserving of sympathy were relatively few.

In Joo Joowon’s eyes, MusclePotato404 could not even be considered an enemy. However, the other party was a Transcendent, and it was difficult to say whether he could still be considered human at this point. Given these circumstances, Joo Joowon certainly had no qualms about making use of him.

After all, he was only using the other party as a stepping stone. It was not a big deal.

"Huh?"

However, the moment Joo Joowon followed the Fate line and located MusclePotato404, he discovered that something seemed wrong with the other party.

It was not because the other party was already dead. On the contrary, not only was he still alive, but he had also grown stronger. His strength had reached a level at least five levels higher than Joo Joowon’s.

Yet, he offered no resistance whatsoever to Joo Joowon’s intrusion. He was completely in a state of leaving the gates wide open and allowing anyone to walk right in.

This was highly abnormal.

All living beings instinctively developed defenses against and rejected foreign things. Even the soul and Fate, which most living beings could not interfere with, were no exception. They naturally resisted outside influences and might even cause the person involved to instinctively sense that something was wrong when an intrusion occurred.

Therefore, this situation, in which the gates were left wide open, was as if the person involved had already lost consciousness and completely lost their ’firewall’.

However, the other party’s level was even higher than his own.