The Flame-Wreathed Guardian Tree

"...Status Window."

My body didn't hurt, but the exhaustion was crushing. Most of the spiritual energy inside me had been gutted clean out — which, looking at it that way, made the thing a mid-boss worthy of the name without question.

I let out a breath of relief at the thought that two more residual stats from events would let me hit a clean hundred before level 100 — and only then did my eyes catch the purple light-stream asserting its presence at the edge of my vision.

"Epic gear."

It had originally been Unique-grade gear, but the Legendary prefix had bumped the whole thing up a tier into Epic. I pulled up the detailed info on the oversized greatsword — a blade taller than I was.

Major Durability Reinforcement was leftover from the Sturdy prefix ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that had been on it before the event upgrade. The Ancient prefix's effect — which would normally raise durability, attack power, stats, level restriction, and everything else across the board by anywhere from eight to twenty percent — had landed at a full eighteen. But the real prize was this:

"Check Random Option Increase Mode."

The mode that took Unique-or-higher gear and jacked its stat gains anywhere from ten to three hundred percent. The result that came back was a full two hundred and ten.

"At this rate it's basically a level-150 Rare weapon."

Higher stats than a trash Unique from the one-fifties, and the durability was absurdly padded on top of that. The Body stat boost from simply equipping it was almost scary for someone stuck at level seventy-two.

I took the oversized greatsword in both hands — a weapon that towered over my own height — and swung. Three soldier ants didn't get cut so much as they detonated wholesale. The satisfying hand-feel of it pulled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the corner of my mouth up.

That much attack power without even feeding spiritual energy into it.

"Hell yes."

"Oh, come the fuck on."

Then again — what else was I expecting from this shitty broken-ass game.

A negative event popping off the second I started enjoying myself should have crumpled my face on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the spot, but with no emotional expression available, the blank muscle of my face didn't so much as twitch.

Even so, the gear advantage was so overwhelming that I could still tear through the dungeon on the lowered Body stat — and without a single Auto-Battle, at that.

I'd been diligent about object work along the way and slotted in extra Magic-grade armor and accessories, so comparing myself now to before I'd entered the dungeon wasn't even a conversation. I was strong.

"Easier than I thought?"

Easy enough that I could put down the ant colony's dungeon boss — the Queen Ant — without any real trouble.

"A dungeon where the mid-boss fight is harder than the actual boss... classic combinations really are legendary..."

There was a reason this particular prefix stack was called one of the twelve great eok-kka of this trash game. The further you got into the late game, the more that combination existed purely to detonate veteran players' runs.

A free rank-up with raw stat inflation slapped on top was more than enough to cave in the skulls of people who were just trying to play the game properly.

"Another consumable, though..."

I knew it was a good one — a residual-stat-plus-one consumable — and with it, one more free point would lock in the next guaranteed event trigger. Even so, the disappointment was hard to swallow.

A weapon. Armor. Hell, even an accessory would have been nice.

"Let's see... this place is disgustingly huge."

Terrain scouting on the minimap had only just scraped sixty-seven percent. Clearing the ant-colony dungeon had filled roughly fifty-five, which meant getting out of this forest was still going to take forever.

I'd hit level seventy-five after the dungeon, I was wearing Magic-grade armor and accessories, and — more than anything — I was holding an Epic-grade weapon. Confidence was starting to feel almost full.

"Mode Manager!"

And that confidence hit the floor immediately. Hoping something would change once I hit level one hundred, I sighed and looked out over the absurdly vast forest.

Green trees and undergrowth packed so thick they smothered the view. Looking at it, a thought drifted up uninvited.

"...What if I just set the whole thing on fire."

Easier movement. Anything that burned to death would stack slaughter energy. Experience would roll in too.

I checked through the disposable consumables — bomb-types that dealt small fixed damage plus fire damage, and every other Normal-to-Rare consumable that simply slapped on flame damage.

I stared for a moment at the useless attack consumables that had been doing nothing but taking up inventory slots, then nodded.

"Might as well try it."

Consequences were not on the agenda.

If I burned this entire disgusting forest flat, terrain scouting would get a whole lot easier. Holding that thought, I pulled the consumables out of my inventory one by one.

Unlike skills you could just hotkey and click, consumables had to be taken out and used by hand — which made them a pain mid-combat — so I felt zero guilt about dumping them.

"Is this some kind of authenticity thing? Consumables cost mana to use? Why the hell does this eat so much spiritual energy."

No chain activation either, so I had to feed spiritual energy into each one individually — but other than that, the plan was perfect. Whether it was the spiritual energy I'd poured in or not, the flames caught properly and started swallowing the forest, and I stood at the mouth of the ant-colony dungeon and watched the show with full commitment.

Apparently it counted as slaughter energy too, because more of it rolled in than I'd expected. Experience was a bit light, but overall it was a satisfying result.

If it weren't for this fucking event—!

"A field boss...?"

Obviously, field bosses being stronger than dungeon bosses was basic common sense across every game — unless you were talking raid dungeon bosses.

But this trash game had never supported multiplayer in the first place, so the field-boss rules were a little different too.

In a game where you could only light up the map and move by using terrain scouting, a field boss was basically a map hack — a cheat key that filled terrain scouting to one hundred percent just for killing it.

To regular players, though, it was pure garbage with worse rewards than a dungeon boss.

Less experience than a dungeon boss, and while dungeon bosses dropped Rare at minimum, field bosses started at Normal.

Even with the full terrain-scouting fill, the question of whether it was even worth the time to kill the thing was completely fair — the merit just wasn't there.

"If it weren't for the mods, that is."

Everything above was vanilla, no-mods talk. Of course there would be a Field Boss Enhancement Mode that padded power, bonus HP, and rewards to match the actual weight of the title.

Without something like that, a field boss couldn't radiate this kind of presence.

"But..."

Something about this one was off.

The second it appeared it started dumping ranged attacks through the flames, and none of it felt threatening at all. Weird.

"Ah. Because it's my slaughter energy."

The fire burning on the guardian tree itself had been lit by my slaughter energy, so the moment it touched my spiritual energy it felt like it was being swallowed right back in.

Sure, the bulk of the flames had originally been the guardian tree's own spiritual energy — but what that energy had become once it burned was my slaughter energy, and slaughter energy, by definition, couldn't hurt me.

I even felt my spiritual core expand a little. I'd already reached a point where ordinary slaughter energy didn't grow the core by so much as a speck, and yet.

"I think I'm starting to get it..."

I raised spiritual energy. Focusing on the blood-red spiritual energy rising under the influence of slaughter energy, I watched the power that had been surging like blood begin to flicker and sway as if it were catching fire.

A change in the spiritual energy itself? No — my spiritual energy had never been anything but slaughter energy wearing a spiritual-energy mask.

"Have I been thinking about this too much like a game?"

In a game, you just level up and get stronger. Because it's a game.

But this fucking broken game had been reality-patched.

"Qi Condensation is the stage where you temper the vital essence inside your body."

What I was carrying inside me, though, wasn't vital essence that could be tempered with spiritual energy. It was experience points made of slaughter energy. Still — different contents didn't have to mean a different process.

"So just piling up slaughter energy inside the body isn't enough."

If you only stacked it, it would just collapse. You had to temper the slaughter energy and compress it. Ordinary slaughter energy wouldn't cut it.

I looked at the Flame-Wreathed Powerful Guardian Tree Gigaes as it closed in to attack, and stretched out both hands.

"I'll just turn you into my experience points!"

Crimson spiritual energy erupted from the spiritual core inside me like a tidal wave and crashed over the field boss. The slaughter energy burning on the field boss's body drank that spiritual energy in and flared even harder, until the flames began to swallow even a guardian tree that should have been able to endure them.

Before the field boss — unable even to scream as it burned whole in the slaughter-energy fire — could finish dying, I threw myself into that massive blaze of slaughter energy as if diving headfirst.

As the vast slaughter energy refined through the field boss as pure fuel was absorbed, the slaughter energy already inside me began to heat up as well.

Feeling, all over again, that the spiritual core I'd thought had grown from the enormous slaughter energy I'd stockpiled was actually just a hollow shell, I finished absorbing every last scrap of the karmic fire, closed my eyes, and turned my awareness inward.

The slaughter energy refined once by an outside force and the slaughter energy still left in my body began to react to each other. More precisely, it felt like shoving a single burning log into a massive woodpile.

Ordinarily the burning log would have been far too small for the pile, and the fire would have struggled to catch — but though it looked like flame, its true substance was slaughter energy.

Centered on that small burning log, fire began to spread slowly through the enormous woodpile.

And deep inside my spiritual core, a tiny ember lit up.