Chapter 26: Club (3)

A hunter fails a layer raid.

Or doesn’t climb the tower at all, monsters appear in reality through gates.

Then.

What about World Bosses?

The conditions for the appearance of World Bosses were still shrouded in mystery.

The first World Boss, [Source of All Evil].

The second World Boss, [Immortal Knight].

Both appeared suddenly, without reason.

I dealt with [Immortal Knight] haphazardly.

But [Source of All Evil].

This guy left a huge aftermath in the world.

If things had gone slightly wrong, the entire Earth could have reverted to the Stone Age, but it ended with the devastation of the United States.

One of the remnants was the ‘Demons’.

Hunters who were eroded by [Source of All Evil] and became villains.

But.

There were cases where spirits became villains.

‘It’s corrupted. Should I call this a Demonic Spirit in this case?’

The limits of ideation were clear.

No one knows how to train the mind.

Muscles tear and rebuild to become stronger, but ideation is not an object of training.

My ideation is 11.

It rose by 1 because I basked in the sunlight in the daily dungeon.

Considering that the freshmen of the academy usually stay in the early single digits, it’s quite high.

But.

It’s not omnipotent.

There is clearly a range that synesthesia does not reach.

To observe outside of ideation, I have no choice but to open my eyes.

Blink.

Seeing through walls and bookshelves.

Expanding my vision through the wrinkles of space.

A sense of recognizing the world itself beyond the retina.

Visual data and semantic information were synchronized.

So.

I can’t not see the forms that the human visual cortex cannot handle.

I intuited it as soon as I saw it.

A spirit is a being created by overlapping meanings.

Faith and fear, wind and water, time accumulates and intertwines to become a pure form.

Lake Biwa (which is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located in Shiga Prefecture.)

Legends and beliefs passed down from ancient times.

The deepest and widest lake in Japan.

The water spirit that asked me for help was also born that way.

But, it was no match.

In front of the Book of the Dead, it was just a mere ghost.

‘That’s why it asked for help.’

A woman named Loran drew her bow.

It’s a person I met before.

The woman who readily told me about Transcendent Enhancement in the bathhouse.

A high nose bridge and a cute jawline.

The red hair that fell from her waist and swayed had a lonely feel.

Now that I see it, her personality was quite spiteful.

“So. There’s a spirit here, right?”

“What are you doing! Cover the book and let’s run away. We need to approach carefully, but if you provoke the spirit…….”

“Do you know how much money I’ve spent on skill enhancements? It’s an amount you won’t be able to match even if you earn your whole life. With this equipment and this skill, there’s nothing to worry about, and you want me to run away?”

“Then what should we do? I can’t even see it.”

“I can’t see it, but it’s here, right? If I catch it, it’ll probably give me a good item. Or, if I do it a favor, maybe I’ll be able to control a spirit or something?”

A woman named Haruki was stomping her feet.

But. She’s not listening at all.

A warrior race, a hunter.

An audacious attitude that doesn’t even consider the possibility of losing.

Only the rewards to be gained by defeating the enemy seemed to be in her eyes.

‘Is the source of her confidence her items?’

She’s decked out in items that only top-tier rankers use.

When I see the grade, my eyes automatically widen.

That one arrow might be more expensive than the weapon of an ordinary hunter.

“Hey, ghost eyes. Just shut up and watch.”

“Ghost eyes!”

“It’s ghost-seeing eyes, so it’s ghost eyes, what else. It seems to be useless right now, though.”

Whoosh!

Blue mana flowed through Loran’s arrow, creating a transparent light.

The intangible force gathered on the arrow spread out like ripples.

It wasn’t the level of deepening one’s inner force to load it onto the arrowhead.

Just.

The power of item buffs.

But, she’s aiming at the wrong place.

Among the skills she possesses, there was one called [Clairvoyance].

But contrary to her confidence, she didn’t seem to be able to see the opponent properly.

“Huh? I can’t see it even with Clairvoyance?”

She was clearly flustered by the unexpected situation.

That.

Produces a fatal result.

The Demonic Spirit just stomped its feet.

Black chaos churned.

Black evil energy blazed and spread in all directions.

A torrent raged.

Loran was engulfed by it. There was no time to scream.

Her body floated in the air. A momentary weightlessness passed, and the next moment, a merciless impact came.

Crack.

Her small body was slammed into the library floor. Her bones creaked.

Her body went limp.

“……!!”

Now the Demonic Spirit turned its gaze to Haruki.

As a visually impaired person, I know.

Not being able to see. The depth of that fear.

If no image is formed in the spiritual eyes, that fear will turn into despair.

Haruki’s face turned pale.

She didn’t seem to realize it.

Strong fear, surprise, and tension stimulated the sympathetic nervous system, increasing the overactivity of the bladder.

Warm liquid spread between her legs and pooled on the floor.

‘She’s quite timid.’

The water spirit also wriggled and hesitated.

The instinct of eons pressed down on even the spirit. An inherent limitation gripped its body like claws.

You can’t fight a spirit if your levels don’t match.

It wasn’t logic or will, it was the law of existence itself.

The Book of the Dead is a King class spirit.

In terms of spirit studies, it’s a natural enemy.

I clicked my tongue and drew my pistol.

Asadia quietly overlapped, and a sense of enhancement bloomed.

It can properly exert its original power in the form of a sniper rifle.

But stacks can be accumulated even in pistol form.

‘It doesn’t know I’m here.’

When the opponent can’t see me.

I see the opponent.

One of the most important principles when sniping.

But.

There’s one fact that holds me back.

This is a library.

It’s so terribly wide and vast that I didn’t even know there was another student in this space.

The bookshelves stretch endlessly. It’s a maze.

Ballistically, it’s the worst.

Direct-fire weapons like firearms can’t exert their proper power here.

In a space with such limited visibility, a line of fire cannot be secured.

My eyes can see through walls, but bullets can’t penetrate walls.

‘How great would it be if bullets had a guidance function.’

A while ago.

I remembered the martial arts class.

It was said that there is a sword technique with supreme power in the world.

The supreme swordsmanship technique.

Igi-geom (Mind Sword/Controlling Sword with Mind).

Going beyond becoming one with the sword, transcending the sword. A technique that flies as you will and cuts as you think.

If—

If that concept could be applied to bullets?

If the bullet that left my hand moved according to my thoughts?

The moment I pull the trigger, fate will be decided.

The target can never escape.

But—

Swords and bullets are different.

The moment it leaves the hand, it breaks the sound barrier and flies.

The speed is too fast, and the size is too small. It’s a very difficult object to control.

It’s a realm that’s not yet related to me.

So I.

Stomped my feet.

If there’s no angle.

I just need to move to where there is an angle.

The upper dantian moved.

Insight flashed in the realm of instinct.

I immediately melt the footwork I saw earlier into my brain.

As if it had its own consciousness, inner force adjusted the flow.

A formula was naturally woven.

Energy was intricately woven, and the flow took shape. There was no need to force it.

Cheonmajiche (Heavenly Demon Body).

My body could already manipulate inner force as soon as I thought about it.

‘Footwork to lighten the body is called Lightness Skill, right.’

I’m still a first-year.

I was at the stage of basic physical training or learning theory.

I haven’t properly learned footwork.

But I saw the ‘Terrible Twins’ I met the other day cast their skill.

If I’ve seen it once with my eyes.

It’s as good as mine now.

‘Pokryu-kwangbo (Torrential Gale Steps/ Violent Stream Light Step).’

Inner force was also mass.

Techniques like Heavy Sword or Cheongeunchu were like that.

The principle of lightness skill wasn’t too difficult either.

The key was to open the meridians of the whole body and distribute the weight by adjusting the acupoints.

My body became lighter, so the restrictions on my footsteps loosened.

Magi was firmly wrapped around the Yongcheon point ( refers to an important acupuncture point in traditional Chinese and Korean medicine)under my feet.

What if I detonate my inner force in this state and take a step?

The energy waves I emit are unusual.

The energy gathered in my small feet exploded with a momentary resonance.

Whoosh!

Instantly, my body turned into a streak of light.

I moved forward in one breath like a typhoon.

A scene where objects seemed to be cut and intermittently connected.

The distant scenery quickly grew in size. It was the world of a master.

There was no floundering, unable to control the speed.

Because my eyes can handle all of this.

Without deviating from the predicted path and trajectory.

I came to the perfect spot and calmly took a firing stance.

Prone position.

The target is clearly visible.

There is nothing to hinder the shot.

I hugged the sniper rifle deeply.

The soft curves changed shape according to the pressure.

‘It’s inconvenient.’

I ignored such trivial sensations.

I only see the target.

My level is only 10.

It was an opponent where dealing damage all day would be meaningless.

Neither Satan, who deals fixed damage, nor the fire-attribute magic bullet that sweeps a wide area, is effective.

There was a different way to deal with spirits.

One circle bloomed.

Unique mana flowed.

The sense of handling fire bloomed within me.

But.

What is condensed is not flames.

The savant’s brain shone.

Entropy.

Nature always tries to increase disorder.

Particles continue random motion.

The fact that the temperature rises.

It means that these guys are moving fast.

Then.

What if you stop that movement?

Intercepting the flow of heat, not gathering it in one place, but taking it away.

Decelerating the motion of particles.

Little by little, slowly, gradually——

Thermal energy loses its flow.

Absolute temperature 0K (Kelvin).

A temperature that theoretically cannot be reached.

A state of complete stillness.

Of course, I can’t lower it to that extent.

To reach absolute zero, theoretically infinite energy is required.

But a sufficiently low temperature was possible.

Essentially, flame and ice are just different aspects of the same theory.

Temperature only flows from high to low.

If I can handle fire, there’s no reason I can’t handle ice.

Bang!

The circle contracted momentarily.

Not diffusion, but condensation.

The temperature plummeted in the isolated space.

Frost pulled moisture from the air.

The circle in front of my eyes froze blue.

The air that fell below freezing point bloomed into clear, transparent crystals.

And.

I loaded a bullet made of ice.

It was a freezing bullet.