Episode 164. The User (4)

I couldn’t resist at all. It was quite a familiar sensation. A feeling that a far higher price was weighing on me.

It felt like a giant hand was slowly falling over my head. The muscles and skin surrounding the bones were torn and splattered everywhere. The intestines spilled, and the heart exploded, but that wasn’t the real thing. He created an image.

He overlaid the image of death on me. I could overcome it if I didn’t fall into it. It was just a kind of hallucination. However, the problem was that the hallucinations were so intense that they felt real, not fiction.

“Uuh.. Ah..”

Before my whole body was completely broken down, I lifted my palm and activated the power. I remembered a figure with that.

A man who was constantly fighting for humanity even if he was stabbed with a sword, his head fell on the floor, and even if half of his body was blown away. A Hunter who was called a living saint and performed amazing miracles. His power dwelled in my body.

Yeah, I wouldn’t die only with that. I had overcome more than that. I didn’t die from that kind of thing.

Zzzsssssstttt.

With that belief, the broken body began to be reassembled. It meant that my will was stronger than the Boss’ image. An unquestionable belief soon manifested as power, which restored my body like Zhang Wei’s abilities in my memory.

The image in my eyes gathered, and my muscles grew again.

Strong faith soon produced miracles.

“.. This cheap trick.”

The voice of the Boss, as if chewing, rang. At the same time, my body floated into the air. I struggled, floundering my limbs in the air. There was no mobility to act. Something cramped me and I felt suffocation. It felt as if I had submerged into the ocean’s depths.

‘If I can’t get out of here, it’s really over.’

Instinctively I knew it was a kind of world created by the Boss. His body grew at an uncontrollable speed, and his enormous presence looked down at me as if crushing me. I couldn’t just leave it alone. I would face the end in vain.

“Huh.. Emph!”

I swirled my body around and avoided the place in a motion akin to swimming. The Boss’ eyes glowed ferociously like the sun, evidently watching me.

“You fool, did you think you could get inside the fence of my house and survive?”

Damn it. I knew very well that fighting in an opponent’s territory was suicide, and I had to drag my opponent out to win. That was why I was a little reluctant to enter the Casino myself.

But what could I do? To deal with someone who rarely exits his territory, the only way to do it was to step up directly.

“It’s stupid. It’s really reckless.” historical

A great grasp flew in to grab me. I could never escape it if I got caught. Zhang Wei’s power or other powers weren’t enough to overcome it. It was best not to get caught in it.

‘Or smash it before it approaches me.’

The surface of my palm shone. Still, I didn’t jump into that place recklessly. I came in after making my plan and preparing for it. A strong man who had far-reaching strength and fights within his own realm. If someone heard that, they would wonder why he fought like that.

‘There’s still a chance of winning.’

Proper vigilance and tension. There was a huge gap so that it didn’t even exist, and the enemy didn’t imagine the image of defeat due to the stability of fighting in his own territory. Dealing with such an enemy was a battle with slim chances of winning.

In any fight, a brief, subtle moment determined victory or defeat, life or death. In the process, vigilance was one of the deadliest factors.

Of course, the arrogant and confident Boss would’ve been off-guard. I was sure he must’ve been overwhelmed since I broke the beads and provoked him. Suddenly, he was no different than a stronger-than-average child at that moment.

A huge hand then approached me. The moment I get caught my whole body would burst. Amid that, my concentration deepened endlessly. Time slowed down.

b Modifier – ‘The Best Hunter’ is activated.}

Memories of tearing and trampling objects harder than steel when I slaughtered giants of monstrous size with a small body of fewer than 2 meters awaken in my body.

Yes, so far, I hadn’t been winning against only the weak. Every hour was a close call, and every other day I risked my life. This was no different from then.

Crack, crack, crack.

My concentration had increased endlessly. I kicked the ground once. At that moment, I felt like I crossed the wall. The speed ??beyond cognition. It felt like electricity had shot through the muscles of my body. My body dug through the gap of those fingers.

“..!”

The Boss’ expression was cracked. I didn’t stop.

“W-What..”

Starting from the palm to the wrist, each power collection was shining. The forces created by imagination awaken in my body. Weapons revealed their teeth one by one.

As I was going through the gap of the Boss’ fingers, I kicked his wrist and climbed up his elbow. The blade of a mirage ripped off his skin and gnawed through it. From then on, it was a battle of images.

He had to be thinking of me like a bug; a little pest that could never stand up once trampled upon. However, sometimes humans were killed by the sting of small insects.

Something called life, in fact, was something that ended in total vain.

-Dealing with monsters is a very difficult task.

-No matter how much you build up your strength, it can’t be harder than their skin.

-No matter how powerful the weapon you obtained and how hard you train your skills and characteristics, you are weaker than the teeth and claws of monsters crawling out of the cracks.

-That’s a natural limit. We are inherently weaker than others.

Long ago, the words spoken while I was standing on the Academy’s podium rang in my head. As an Analyst, Jeong Si-woo evaluated Hunters as such. No amount of effort could go beyond the natural characteristics of a monster. However, Analyst Jeong Si-woo had never mentioned despair or failure.

-But we still slaughtered innumerable monsters.

-We slaughtered them, and we defended our territory.

-Those who survived the war are the winners.

-We eventually survived, and we will survive to the end.

-Weak but persistent, inherently inferior but growing endlessly.

-Hunters continue like that. We end up slaughtering monsters that are dozens of times larger than ourselves, and we united together to defeat strong enemies for months and later defeated many things by ourselves.

-That’s who we are.

The Boss was no longer intimidating to me. The blade of the Mirage cut and tore his body. In the process, I didn’t allow a single attack.

The Boss became smaller and smaller. The indescribably enormous body changed similarly to mine. The existence that stood so high that it was hard to see fell into the same position.

“W..What!?”

Whoong-!

The change caused the Boss to move too much as if he were confused. But I couldn’t have been beaten by such an obvious attack. I turned my body and pierced his chest with a couple of stabs. A thick liquid splashed everywhere.

The image of immortality, the thoughts that had been rooted in the Boss’ head were gradually breaking apart. He was getting hurt and weak. The arrogant giant, who had settled in the home of the Transcendents, was being bitten to death by a small rabid dog.

“.. How did he do this to the Boss so easily..”

“What’s going on right now..”

As the Transcendents’ perceptions looked at that change, my power grew greater and stronger with the shifting public opinion. My image, which was infinitely underneath, rose as if piercing the sky.

A shock naturally accompanied a sudden twist, and a shocking scene was bound to be strongly engraved in your head. In the middle of a dramatic situation, I became the protagonist, and none of the readers who loved the story thought the protagonist would lose.

“Perhaps..”

Someone imagined that I might win and that unconventional imagination soon spread to many Transcendents. The image of the Boss, who was ruined by great embarrassment, fell surprisingly fast.

It was a natural phenomenon for the embedded stone, which had dominated one place for a long time, to become insignificant rolling gravel. The generational change was inherently very sudden. The long-living Transcendents knew it very well.

“This.. it can’t.. be!”

So did the Boss, who had lived beyond measure. That was why he wanted to deny that situation even more. After all, that flow would only be poison to him. He knew that if that continued, his breath would soon break.

Clack, clack!

There were a lot of wounds on the Boss’ body. The things he did didn’t hurt me anymore. His modifier, The Boss, had become useless. He wasn’t looking down on me from the top of my head. He was looking at me as an equal.

“Arghh.. Aaaaaaarggghh!”

Along with a bizarre cry, the Boss’ body was torn into several branches. It wasn’t what my blade did. A phenomenon in which his body itself changed. The surrounding air had changed. With that, the sixth sense warned me that it was dangerous.

‘.. What image is this-?’

His eyebrows frowned. All the decorations inside the ornate building were broken, and darkness spread over the illuminated place.

At the same time, disgusting tentacles rose from the Boss’ body. He was no longer the one who was playing the Game earlier. It wasn’t a host who tried to seek pleasure and attention from others, but a beast that devoured and swallowed greedily anything it wanted. A ravaging beast came to life.

“Without.. trace.. I’ll eat you without a trace. Not to mention that brilliant cheap trick, the Akashic Records that the Faceless King desires so much, and the world you have!”

It was an unpleasant voice to hear. It smelled like something putrid. A puddle that had accumulated in one place for a very long time and had rotted. It smelled like I was in a place like that.

“.. You want to eat me that much? Really?”

Looking at it, I put the Mirage in my waist, and then, with bare hands, I faced the tentacles that were fired at me. Anyway, those weapons couldn’t counter the power that he brought out. The physical fight on the surface was over. Currently, it was a battle of Transcendents over existence.

“Okay. Let’s do it, you son of a bitch. You, who are playing with the world and enjoying low-level pleasure, and me. Let’s fight and see who is more worthy of Transcendence.”

Pugh-!

His tentacles pierced my chest, and..

Grasp.

My grip pulled in his tentacles. With that, his body was dragged towards me.

Splash, splash.

A sticky liquid splashed around the swinging fist. Along with that, the world changed violently.

[Another Transcendent interferes with the user’s mental world.]

[Another Transcendent interferes with the user.]

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“Yes, give it a try.”

A voice of evil came out.

“I’m not alone, after all.”

[Power: ‘Link’ has been activated.]

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[The Akashic Records, great stories that were held in vain in a super-dimensional collection of information begins to dwell in the user’s soul.]