Chapter 9 - Episode 1. Ten Billion Stabs (8)
Chapter 9: Episode 1. Ten Billion Stabs (8)
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Beastrein stared at him in disbelief, then pressed a hand to his forehead.
“Ha... I expected something like this might happen, but I have never seen anyone like you before.”
“I heard plenty of similar things on my way here.”
A sharp aura gathered around the True Dragon Sword and Ice Dragon Sword in his hands. Jaehwan’s fierce spiritual power pooled at their tips.
“And this is my answer.”
Beastrein raised both hands as if giving up.
“Oh, do whatever you want. Go right ahead.”
Jaehwan’s swords shot toward Beastrein.
The next moment.
A strange circular magic formation glowed beneath him. Something rapidly grew from it, wrapping tightly around Jaehwan’s body and binding him. It was Black Iron Wood, a plant that propagated on the Tower’s 91st floor.
“If I'd done this from the start, it would have been easier for both of us. Wouldn’t it?”
“...What are you planning? You cannot end this game without my consent anyway.”
“Well, there are ways around that, aren’t there?”
“You plan to torture me.”
“...Haha.”
“I have seen every kind of hell on my way up here. Do you think torture would work on me?”
“Hehe, yes. Of course it would not.”
Beastrein smiled slyly.
“To be honest, I gave up on getting your consent long ago.”
“What?”
“This time, let me ask you something. Why do you think this Tutorial Game will continue forever?”
“Don’t tell me...”
“Hehe, exactly. A game has never ended this way before, but the 《Tower of Nightmares》 is programmed to end automatically one hundred days after the tutorial concludes.”
Of course, this damn human had delayed the delivery report considerably.
Beastrein kept that thought to himself.
“I waited an extra ten days because I wanted to end the game as safely and naturally as possible. To make sure you did not try anything unnecessary. So, Jaehwan, stay right there and quietly join the Main Game.”
Beastrein did not seem to be lying.
The Tower’s movements had felt strange for some time. Small tremors could be felt throughout it. They were surely signs that the game was about to end.
Beastrein looked at Jaehwan, who stood with his head lowered, and felt a strange sense of victory. The plan had gone awry, but this human had finally stopped struggling and accepted his fate.
Then Jaehwan spoke.
“Demon Beastrein.”
“Yes?”
“In the Great Realm, you are known as the Gentleman of Mockery. Is that right?”
“...That is correct, but how did you know?”
“You have lived for 784 years. You traveled through 128 worlds, carrying out filthy cultivation on their races. All while peddling nonsense about introducing them to excellent Lords.”
“How could you possibly...?”
Disbelief filled Beastrein’s eyes.
“What, are you surprised to hear that from the Product you were cultivating?”
“You, just what...?”
“You are probably planning to hand me over to the harvester known as the Lord of Darkness. In return, you will receive the enormous reward you need for your fourth Molt.”
Jaehwan spoke as he looked up at the Tower’s ceiling.
The Doubt he had honed for the past hundred days was finally showing its power. After doubting and doubting again, he had barely reached the essence of the world.
Particles chattered as they drifted through the Tower. Jaehwan listened to their voices.
Doubt showed him a new world.
That new world told him stories.
[...Lord of Darkness, the First Cultivation will soon be complete. The contract advance payment...]
[...This Product is top-grade. In 784 years, I have never seen a Product like this...]
[...Once this transaction is complete, I will finally finish my fourth Molt and become a high-ranking demon. If you leave this cultivation in my care until the end...]
...
“...Who are you?”
“Who else? I am the Product you have raised here for decades.”
Jaehwan felt the particles binding him gradually lose their cohesion. That was another power of Doubt. After doubting and doubting again, he denied the structure of matter itself and slowly dismantled it.
“But not anymore.”
Two swords cut through the air.
Beastrein barely avoided them, but a long cut appeared on his left forearm. It was impossible. His opponent was a rookie who had only just cleared the Tutorial Game.
Beastrein was a demon who had completed the third Molt.
To leave even a scratch on him, one had to be at least a first-stage Adapter.
‘Could he be an Over-Adapter?’
An Over-Adapter.
A Product whose growth repeatedly surpassed common sense.
‘How could an Over-Adapter appear in my Tower...?’
Perhaps in the Main Game, but had an Over-Adapter ever emerged during a tutorial? Over-Adaptation was a talent ranked among the very highest even in the 《Great Realm》.
He could vividly picture the Lord of Darkness’s delight.
‘Even so, he is only at the level of a first-stage Adapter. If I hold out a little longer, the game will end.’
Beastrein gritted his teeth.
“This is useless! You have to join the Main Game anyway! If you keep this up, you will only lose more!”
“We will see.”
Jaehwan’s specialty unfolded from the tip of the Ice Dragon Sword.
Stab.
Could it still be called Stab?
From the suitability of the movement to the flow of power.
It was the result of doubting everything about the movement he had believed was Stab, then doubting it again.
And so, he realized it.
He realized what state a human reached when there was nothing left to doubt.
He reached 「Understanding」 of Stab.
It was no longer Stab.
It was a ray of light, something that could only be called a flash.
Blood burst from Beastrein’s body.
His eyes widened as if they would tear apart.
“Could he be at second-stage Adaptation?”
This speed. This destructive power.
It could not be possible unless he had reached the level of a second-stage Adapter.
And throughout the entire history of cultivation, fewer than ten second-stage Adapters had emerged during a tutorial.
Beastrein could no longer let his guard down. If Jaehwan had truly reached second-stage Adaptation, Beastrein would have to use the power of his true body, which was linked to the material realm.
Beastrein hurriedly raised his synchronization rate to eighty percent and borrowed his true body’s power. An enormous amount of spiritual power wrapped around his flesh. Black light poured from Beastrein’s body.
It was the true body of a demon who had completed the third Molt.
A demon’s third Molt was often compared to third-stage Adaptation, but there was a slight difference. Most Adapters could never defeat demons of the same stage.
Even at the same stage, there was a vast difference between the years humans and demons had lived.
A massive claw sprouted from Beastrein’s hand and tore through Jaehwan’s body in an instant. Jaehwan was overwhelmingly outmatched in both power and combat sense.
The strength of a demon who had lived for centuries was no joke.
Blood poured from Jaehwan’s body, and his Constitution dropped below half in an instant.
“Submit peacefully!”
The enormous aura pouring from Beastrein made Jaehwan’s legs tremble.
Demons really were unbelievable creatures.
Maybe he could not win.
The arrangement of particles making up the Tower had nearly reached the point of collapse.
Was this the end?
Jaehwan continued to stab until the very end.
That tenacity was what had brought him here.
He stabbed again and again.
How many times had he stabbed like that by now?
One billion times, or two billion?
Only Jaehwan’s body knew the answer.
9999999991...
9999999992...
...
9999999998...
9999999999...
10000000000!
...
At that moment, Jaehwan saw a strange line.
He had experienced this before.
When he fought the Ice Dragon on the Tower’s 99th floor.
When he had to keep stabbing even in the face of death.
He had occasionally found that faint line.
Whenever he found it, he unconsciously swung his sword after it. It was something that could only be seen when everything else was forgotten.
So that was it.
Jaehwan trembled with exhilaration.
He let himself fall before the incoming claw.
Then he forgot everything.
Everything he had learned. Everything he had mastered. Everything he had believed.
He quietly let go of everything he had unconsciously considered natural. The endless numbers that produced strength. The values and coefficients. Even his own mind, which had become their slave.
Then his body began to break apart.
The data clinging to Jaehwan’s body shattered away. Combat Power, Constitution, Mentality, Agility... The status data that made up his body. Every skill he had learned and every construct of information.
Everything that reduced the existence of a human to numbers fell away from Jaehwan’s body.
A state of complete Selflessness.
As the particles of his dismantled body shone brightly and disappeared, only the pure essence of his soul remained. He felt completely reborn. He was no longer data, nor was he a probability that happened to exist. He was a living human.
Jaehwan thought.
So that was it. Until now, I had not been a proper human.
A dazzling light burst from Jaehwan’s body.
Beastrein stared at the sight with his mouth hanging open. Even in 784 years of life, it was something Beastrein had never seen.
“Good heavens. What is that?”
Beastrein realized that he had misunderstood something all along.
That was not Adaptation.
There was something in this world more dangerous than Adaptation.
A state that everyone avoided speaking of and shunned.
A terrifying power that could do more than shake the Great Realm. It could destroy the Great Realm entirely.
The beings of the Great Realm called it this.
「Awakening」
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion