"I can see it. Every single move you make."
The words spilled out completely out of sync. Each syllable dragged laggingly, then suddenly accelerated.
"In this new hunting ground, you're finally making me feel a bit tense. You, I mean....."
The silhouette of the World-Eradicating Demon Lord instantly vanished from the spot.
"…Should I say thank you?"
Only the two of them floated within the empty void. A space with neither an upside nor a downside. It was impossible to gauge exactly where in this pitch-black, footholdless void the World-Eradicating Demon Lord had vanished from.
However, wherever it was, there was only one thing left to ponder.
Where, how, and through what path the demonic qi would be poured out. Dong Bong-soo's thoughts were tracking that only variable.
Krrrooooong—!
The demonic qi boiled into a single mass and left the Demon Lord's body. A blood-red heap advanced, completely crushing the distance between them. It was a weight-driven strike, as if a mountain had been collapsed and dumped straight into a river.
An immense volume of demonic qi, accumulated by slaughtering thousands, tens of thousands of lives, then condensed, reduced, and highly compressed once more.
The Super True Energy Field shuddered in direct resonance with that tremor. Interlocking at the exact same width as the patterns he had scanned multiple times before, the bound demonic energy began to disperse under its own momentum.
The Super True Energy Field had continuously evolved through several iterations alongside its creator, Dong Bong-soo. By now, it had advanced far beyond a mere domain, becoming closer to tens of thousands of controllable limbs and eyes. And the solution to this field was a high-order equation that only Dong Bong-soo alone could solve.
Hwiryuryuryuryuryuryuryu—.
Nevertheless, while he was unweaving a single strand, the next wave of demonic energy flooded over it. The speed of filling the cleared space far outstripped the speed of dispersal.
The moment he solved one, two more swelled up.
Following the transformation, the supply volume of the demonic qi had exceeded the capacity of the Super True Energy Field by a full tier.
The scanning and dispersing hands could scarcely keep pace with the pouring deluge.
In the meantime.
Spot—!
The demonic energy, whose sound and light lagged a step behind its actual displacement, struck the reinforced wall of the Super True Energy Field that Dong Bong-soo had firmly deployed. It hammered simultaneously across a vast expanse, like an immense fishing net.
Kwagwagwagwagwang!
Dong Bong-soo's figure shot away backward, propelled directly away from the trajectory of the demonic energy mass as if struck by a sudden calamity.
Boom!
He pierced straight through a single half-drawn mountainside. The hollow cross-section shattered, scattering gray fragments into the void.
Crashing through countless floating pieces of unfinished data along his path, his back finally embedded into the surface of a drifting fragment. Even the distance traversed during this displacement remained completely unknowable, as the empty void was vast and hollow enough to render even such concepts entirely incomprehensible.
Pssss...
A thin wisp of white steam rose from his chest. The fabric of the robes where the demonic energy had made contact had dissolved into a slight, blackened ruin.
This was the first time the [Murim Public Enemy Set] had sustained even a fraction of damage.
"Impressive."
The exchange just now had taught him a distinct lesson.
'Scattering my energy in single digits isn't enough to withstand that much demonic energy poured into a single strike.'
Tap, tap.
Dong Bong-soo lightly brushed away the gray ash scattered across his chest and shifted his eyes toward the upper right.
The Demon Lord would undoubtedly be approaching, though he was still far enough to appear as nothing more than a mere dot.
At one edge of his vision, a single number that had been quietly sitting fixed in place grew noticeably larger.
The [Consecutive Strikes] count.
Since all other buffs were already fully active, there were no further stats he could raise.
Items like the Spiritual Root Stones remained, but using them now would be entirely inappropriate.
However.
※ Current Remaining Points: 47
Though he couldn't speak for the Murim Online system, the stats from the What Is Hero system had accumulated quite significantly.
Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Spirit, Charm, Luck, and so on.
Tiring, tiriririk—.
He distributed the points appropriately into all stats, excluding Charm.
Dozens of sharp, electrical thrills coursed through his entire frame, as if his nervous system were being jolted.
"Good."
Dong Bong-soo, who had been embedded within the cross-section of the floating fragment, finally extracted his body from it.
Clatter, tap.
The tips of his feet stepped back down onto the floating debris.
He wiped away the remaining gray dust from his clothes with the back of his hand and then turned his head toward the World-Eradicating Demon Lord, who had already drawn close enough to assume a fully distinct form.
No, the moment he even thought to turn his head, the combination of his [Footwork] and the Super True Energy Field had already narrowed the space between them.
Dong Bong-soo materialized in front of the Demon Lord's face like a diagonal slash cutting through the air.
"Shall we continue?"
Bam!
The moment his fist buried into the abdomen, the Demon Lord's brain rattled and his internal organs violently twisted.
Only then did the World-Eradicating Demon Lord see it.
Exactly how Dong Bong-soo had moved. To his eyes, which had squeezed their demonic qi to the absolute limit, everything else appeared to drag in slow motion, yet Dong Bong-soo alone broke in by cleanly slicing through those lagging gaps. It was a stride that severed time into individual blocks and stepped through the intervals.
It wasn't that he was invisible; he was moving by cutting the very texture of distance itself.
What had occurred in that brief interval? In that minuscule span of time, the other side had grown distinctly sharper and faster.
Before the tail end of the voice saying 'Shall we continue?' could even fully dissipate, the Demon Lord's figure flew backward along the exact trajectory he had come from, punching a straight line through the drifting fragments.
The surrounding scenery on both sides stretched endlessly, as if pulled drastically back and forth.
Thud, crack.
The Demon Lord embedded deeply into the cross-section of a severed slope.
Sizzle, sizzle.
Red steam seeped from the impact site. The split flesh began to mend itself back up from the inside.
The cut areas swelled back to fullness, and the fractured bones reconnected.
Rustle.
Dong Bong-soo had already followed him down. He had long since deduced where that relentless regenerative capability originated from. It was one of the elements the [Eye of Faith] had overlaid across the man's skin prior to the engagement. A single set of blood-red armor.
"Blood Demon Raiment."
The embedded World-Eradicating Demon Lord pulled his body out from the cross-section. His wounds, scars, and lost flesh were burning through his stored demonic qi to fully replenish themselves once more.
"An armor that burns demonic qi to mend the body."
Along with his words, a single sword materialized in his left hand. It was the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword drawn from his inventory. As he coated the blade with his qi, the edge grew a full dimension heavier.
Slash.
The sword swept across. The rate of the cutting outpaced the speed at which the blood-red shroud could mend. Before the severed gap could even fully close, he sliced right over it again.
The staggering, retreating man laughed through his ragged breaths. His face still bore that manic expression of pure ecstasy, yet a look he had never shown before was overlaid atop it.
"Khehehe.... how on earth did you learn about that too?"
Even in a situation where the innermost treasures beneath his very skin had been thoroughly read clean through.
"No matter how much I cut, no matter how many times I killed and killed again, they were all exactly the same! You alone are this different. Splendid. Splendid. I fucking love it."
Across his rigid countenance, something else entirely swelled up in place of wrath.
"I absolutely adore you. Let's roll around together for the rest of our lives! Khehehehehehe!"
Dong Bong-soo did not answer. Even if a dish sitting across the dining table asks how one knows its exact recipe, there is absolutely no reason to indulge it with an explanation.
When no reply returned, the retreating World-Eradicating Demon Lord fiercely kicked off the ground in reverse.
It was a display of sheer intent—if the man wouldn't answer with his mouth, he would force an answer out with his hands.
Ten fingers clad in black gloves spread wide. From the rings and plates fitted over each joint like thimbles, a crimson light surged from every knuckle, tempering his fingertips into ten individual finger-blasts—no, ten flying short-swords of pure qi.
This time, he did not thrust directly forward.
"I learned earlier that thrusting blindly is a fool's errand."
The ten fingertips scattered in a circle, placing Dong Bong-soo dead in the center. Yes, literally like objects capable of independent separation, the fingers detached simultaneously and surrounded Dong Bong-soo.
One blade directly ahead, two to the flanks, and the remainder arrayed diagonally above and below. This possessed a fundamentally distinct texture from the fan-shaped array from before, which had targeted his limbs and throat separately.
It wasn't an attempt to pierce a single point; it was a hand designed to encircle the space Dong Bong-soo occupied and grind it to dust within a cage of blood-red blades.
"So this time, I'm going to pen you in and grind you down. If there are no open gaps, I just have to make sure not a single spot is left vacant, right?"
Spapapapapapapapapat!
The ten blades whipped into a simultaneous vortex. The surrounding edges rotated in a single direction, tightening inward. It was a hand stroke that swirled and churned rather than thrusting.
As the perimeter narrowed, the space trapped within was dragged straight into a blood-red meat grinder. Since it wasn't targeting a specific vacancy, there was no empty spot left to miss.
A section of a half-drawn mountainside brushed against the edge of the cage formed by the demonic qi field and was instantly ground away into sawdust.
It was undeniably a much smarter move than his previous wasted efforts. Dong Bong-soo saw it clearly—the flow of the demonic qi being dragged along as the fingers rotated in a single direction.
Anything that rotates has an axis.
While maintaining the sword in his left hand, his vacant right hand was casually placed onto a single strand of that flow. The Super True Energy Field permeated along the vortex, twisting the rotating axis once from the inside. He didn't seize it to a halt; rather, he shoved the rotating direction entirely in reverse.
Creeeeeeak—.
The tightening cage of blood-red demonic qi began to spin backward a beat late. The finger-blades that had been grinding inward were caught in their own momentum and whipped back toward their master.
"....Uh?"
The ten blades released from his own hands inversely surrounded the World-Eradicating Demon Lord. The entity that had intended to imprison was now imprisoned himself. The blood-red edges swept around, passing cleanly across their master's shoulders and flanks in a full rotation.
Slice—.
"How strange. These are my own hands."
The Demon Lord looked down at his shoulder, ground open by his own finger-blades.
The severed flesh was bubbling from within, mending itself back up. As a single layer of blood-red energy replenished the form, the marks where he had just been cut became entirely indistinct.
Ah.
So that's why I don't die either.
Dong Bong-soo did not miss the brief opening as the reversing cage of demonic qi dissolved.
Slipping his figure through the loosened demonic edges to cleave the space, he thrust his left hand straight through the gap.
Slash.
The lightning-fast tip of his sword split the Demon Lord's chest wide open, leaving it deeply torn enough to expose the absolute void behind him.
Yet, the severed area instantly began to fill back up to fullness once more.
"... As expected, that sting of yours is quite something."
The Demon Lord wiped the gouged, refilling chest with the back of his hand, laughing hideously once again.
"But isn't that a bit insufficient to finish this......?"
Slash.
Cleave.
Shred.
Insufficient?
Following the Demon-Expelling Annihilation Wheel Sword, Dong Bong-soo drew the Evil-Warding Sword as well. He did not halt there, pulling every single bladed weapon from his inventory and suspending them all within the Super True Energy Field.
An absolute truth in a capitalist world:
There is nothing in this world that cannot be resolved with money. If it failed, it was simply because there wasn't enough money.
And.
An absolute truth in the Murim:
There is nothing in this world that cannot be resolved with power. If it failed, it was simply because there wasn't enough power.
Insufficient?
It was simply that there weren't enough swords. It was simply that the cutting had been lacking.
Then, a perfectly clear solution existed.
He would add more swords until the enemy ceased to exist, and cut until it was completely eradicated.
Slash.
Cleave.
Shred.