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Transcendent
“Haha. You’re right. It doesn’t matter. Hmm, but are you from Lupaine? I don’t think I’ve ever heard the language you speak.”
Kim Bongpal quietly glared at the Monstrous Immortal. The one who broke that silence was the supernatural being who appeared later.
Tap-!
Maya. The Monstrous Immortal expressed his welcome as the Phantom Horse galloped by.
“A welcome guest has appeared. Long time no see, Maya. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“…Yeah. Right. Long time no see.”
Maya pretended to be casual. However, she was totally anxious.
-I-it’s the Monstrous Immortal…
She sent a transmission through the magic that rang in Kim Bongpal’s mind. While Kim Bongpal frowned at the strange feeling, Maya continued.
-He’s the Monstrous Immortal! The Monstrous Immortal! We need to get out of here.
“Oh, it was nice to see you. Did you finish your business? What are you doing? Let’s go.”
Maya continued to send messages to Kim Bongpal while showing an expression as if nothing was wrong.
-Hey, hurry up! Hurry! You’ll die if you get caught!
Kim Bongpal’s forehead twitched. These Shadowless Squad bastards came from the Demon Cult, and this old man called the Monstrous Immortal. It was obvious which way the weight of the scale should lean.
“…Right, let’s go.”
With those words, Maya approached Kim Bongpal and grabbed his arm. The Monstrous Immortal was watching it with a strange smile.
However.
“Where are you going?”
The Monstrous Immortal asked as they were about to leave.
“What? Why! You don’t even know him! He has something to do with me. We need to go quickly!”
Maya became desperate. Had her spell lost its effect? No, that wasn’t it; her spell was still working. Then what was it?
“Maya, you know what?”
“…”
“What was I thinking when you lost your blood to Scherazard?”
The strange smile on the Monstrous Immortal’s face…grew even wider. His white teeth gleamed.
“Ah, that Maya has fallen so badly. That beautiful and strong Maya! And because of a Lupaine Vampire whom I had been ignoring!”
Vicious energy emanated from the Monstrous Immortal’s snake-like eyes.
“And then I realized Lupaine’s power is strong. And that power….”
The Monstrous Immortal’s eyes lit up.
“…is very useful.”
Seeing them, Maya turned pale.
“N-no way….”
Kim Bongpal felt something familiar about the look in Monstrous Immortal’s eyes. It was similar to the mysterious gaze that Kim Bongpal felt in Johan. However…it wasn’t fully identical, and it was just close enough that he wanted to pluck them out.
It wasn’t just the gaze either. He felt the energy of the Black Wizards emanating from the Monstrous Immortal. But it was several times more bizarre than Johan and Callinan.
“You crazy bastard! I didn’t know you would use the Immortal Technique!”
“Well. I don’t care whether it was the Immortal Technique or black magic. Thanks to that, I have discovered the treasure you have hidden through your sorcery. Haha! I guess Heaven is helping me like this!”
Even though Maya was weakened, her spell worked perfectly; if only the Monstrous Immortal were like how Maya remembered him. He wouldn’t have seen through her magic no matter what Immortal Technique he used, and it would have been the same even if he had black magic.
However, the power that the Monstrous Immortal obtained through numerous sacrifices wasn’t just black magic. He attained a mysterious power beyond the standard that Maya could imagine, and it penetrated Maya’s spell and recognized Kim Bongpal’s uniqueness.
For some reason, his body had reached the Transcendental realm, but only that. The Monstrous Immortal’s smile grew even wider. Maya’s hands were trembling; Kim Bongpal could feel it against his arm.
The evil energy Kim Bongpal first felt from the Monstrous Immortal and the fierce energy unique to the Black Wizards mixed. They gave off such a disgusting stench.
“…Ha.”
Kim Bongpal smirked. Maya said in a trembling voice.
“S-sorry…I didn’t think he had learned black magic….”
She sounded on the verge of tears.
“Hey, you shouldn’t be sorry about that.”
“Huh…huh?”
Kim Bongpal’s right hand went to the sword’s hilt tied to his waist. It felt so natural there in his hand. Why? Was it because he had been holding onto it all night and training?
Tap-
Kim Bongpal mussed Maya’s hair with his free hand.
“You said I would die if I fought that fucking bastard, right? But…”
Maya stopped trembling with his following words.
“I don’t think so.”
“Huh?”
“Watch me from here. Whether I will die or not.”
The tickling feeling he had felt since last night…was this the wall that people talked about so much? Well, he just needed to check it out.
Kim Bongpal drew his sword.
* * *
I think I’ll win.
…It would be a lie if he said he was sure of that. He acted bravely, but the vast energy the Monstrous Immortal exuded had kept Kim Bongpal back for a while.
But now he didn’t have time to worry about that. After all, Kim Bongpal wasn’t someone who would avoid the fight he searched out.
Dash!
Kim Bongpal boosted his mana and attacked his opponent. His sword was surrounded by a Sword Trail several times thicker than the one the Shadowless Squad Captain could use.
This was Kim Bongpal’s first time fighting against black magic and this Immortal Technique. However, there was some common sense that always rang true: he must end the battle as quickly as possible, and it would be much more advantageous for him to engage in close combat.
Bzzzzzzttt-!
But something stopped Kim Bongpal’s rush. A shield? No, the evil energy emitted by the Monstrous Immortal bent like a whip and stopped Kim Bongpal.
‘———.’
Kim Bongpal mentally chanted and raised his sword again. He dismissed Maya’s spell suppressing his mana.
“Hehehe! That’s nice!”
The Monstrous Immortal laughed out loud at the change within Kim Bongpal. Now, it could be clearly seen with his naked eye without the need to borrow eyes from other beings. His opponent’s body, the specialness contained within, was on display.
The Monstrous Immortal had crossed the wall imperfectly. However, as he crossed it imperfectly, a bigger and thicker wall was built in front of him. How many years of hard work should he endure to break it? Should the Monstrous Immortal, who insisted on living by and for himself for the rest of his life, accept the proposal ‘they’ offered because he couldn’t stand it?
However, the key to breaking it appeared before his eyes. How could he be unhappy about it? The Monstrous Immortal bared his teeth and laughed.
“It’s great. Damn it.”
On the other hand, Kim Bongpal rushed the Monstrous Immortal with a frown.
Craaaaank!
Kim Bongpal’s sword was a blur. Boasting a terrifying force, this time, he tore up the Monstrous Immortal’s energy without mercy. But his opponent’s expression remained unchanged.
Whoosh.
Suddenly, his energy divided into dozens of branches and rose from the Monstrous Immortal’s back. They shot off quickly, snaking through the air to wrap around Kim Bongpal’s body.
“Come to think about it….”
However, Kim Bongpal only swung his sword once.
“Isn’t Tearing Mind really a good teacher?”
A battle of a dozen against one?
Taats!
The moment he swung his sword, the blade scattered.
“He even gave me this useful technique for free, damn it.”
Eight directions. No, going further, sixteen, thirty-two. Kim Bongpal’s sword fluctuated, occupying all of these places simultaneously. As a result, none of the Monstrous Immortal’s energy reached Kim Bongpal.
However, Kim Bongpal wasn’t very happy with that fact, and it was because his opponent didn’t even blink an eye at his response just now. Of course, he knew that, at best, the only thing he could do was deflect or evade.
‘It sucks.’
He could see why Maya said that; if he had been his former self, he would have been killed by this bastard.
What about now? Well, he didn’t know, and he didn’t know if a couple of weeks of practice could make a big difference…
Dash-!
Maybe he could cut off that guy’s head, or maybe he couldn’t. Kim Bongpal changed his mana by taking a breath, leaving that speculation behind. It had only been a few days since he mastered it, but his mana had neared an almost perfect flow. Thanks to that, he managed to get close this time.
Whoosh.
However, Kim Bongpal cut through empty air. By the time the sword reached him, the Monstrous Immortal was gone. It wasn’t a quick dash like Kim Bongpal’s approach, but a movement made in an instant.
“You fucking bastard.”
He tried to get as close as possible, but…Kim Bongpal could see the Monstrous Immortal was looking at him with a smile in the distance.
Land Shrink was the name of the technique. Moving through space was a realm that was allowed even for the half-transcendent.
The Monstrous Immortal began to cast a spell. Then, something dark appeared around him. Kim Bongpal fired several slashes, but the dark energy consumed them. They wiggled a little but didn’t scatter.
Suddenly, the darkness created by the spell spread around Kim Bongpal. It was different from the previous attacks. A little more hideous, a little more disgusting. It glided around and embraced Kim Bongpal from every direction. It was also different this time because it couldn’t be easily cut.
Kim Bongpal made his Trail Force denser, but there was still no valid hit. The Monstrous Immortal used the technique earlier to evade whenever Kim Bongpal broke through and got close. Then, he conjured the darkness again.
Kim Bongpal continued to cut it away again and again.
“…Haah”
Kim Bongpal exhaled the sigh he had been holding back. For him, it was the first struggle he had experienced since coming to this other world. When he tried to break through the attack, the Monstrous Immortal was always somewhere else before he knew it. Maybe to prevent that, Maya was chanting a spell back there, but…it didn’t seem to be working.
“It sucks.”
There was still enough mana to let him fight for a few more hours. However.
Drip-
Blood trickled down Kim Bongpal’s side, and he couldn’t block all the Monstrous Immortal’s attacks. As a result, the wounds piled up. There were several light cuts across his body. They were small now, but they were piling up at this rate.
“Oh, my. What a waste.”
The Monstrous Immortal said so as he watched the blood drip on the ground.
“Well, it can’t be helped. The finest cuisine requires ripening.”
“…What the fuck?”
‘That fucking bastard. Is he treating me like food?’
Kim Bongpal felt his insides heat up. But despite that burning anger, his head was cold. He couldn’t kill this bastard at this rate, and he needed something, some way, to break through.
Keep on cutting through his attacks as he did before? That was the worst option. This opponent didn’t prefer close combat, but his recognition speed was as fast as Kim Bongpal’s. Even the slash Kim Bongpal recently learned could not break his defense.
If so, what if he fired it with Trail Force? Tearing Mind, no, Tearing Wind Sword said it would be impossible.
But Kim Bongpal felt that he could somehow do it. However, was that denial? The opponent’s defense was almost identical to the Trail Force’s power.
Kim Bongpal’s thoughts continued.
“…Ha!”
He let out a small laugh. It was funny to even think about it like this. Since when did he swing his sword as others taught him?
Kim Bongpal ran backward, kicking off the ground. The Monstrous Immortal’s dark energy fell where he’d been standing.
Bump!
The ground was compressed.
“Hmm. Why don’t you stop avoiding it? If you accept your fate at this point, I will let you go without any pain.”
The attack was followed by arrogant bullshit.
“Hey.”
Kim Bongpal gave strength to his hand holding the sword, and his mana wriggled around the blade. It wasn’t a smooth shape without waste like the Trail Force before, but it felt more natural to Kim Bongpal.
He felt the tickling sensation again.
‘Will it work?’
From top to bottom, Kim Bongpal drew his sword. The Monstrous Immortal raised his energy and put a shield in front of him.
Crang-!
Originally, such a sound should resound when Kim Bongpal’s Trail Force hit the shield.
But there was no sound.
“…!”
Kim Bongpal’s slash went beyond the Monstrous Immortal’s common sense and, coincidentally, his shield, which passed right through and hit his neck.
Rotten-smelling blood spurted out.
“I’ll try to spray some more, you fucking bastard.”
Kim Bongpal cursed at him.