Immortal Muscle

No matter how many angles I examined the cultivation method my Humanity Clones were using to move my body and suck spiritual energy out of the secret realm from inside the Mental World, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

But one thing was crystal clear: the spiritual energy those Humanities were greedily vacuuming up was being force-refined through a four-layer — wait, no, the Seas of Slaughter were triple-layered, so make that a seven-layer — filtration system consisting of the Wheel of Slaughter, the Clouds of Killing Intent, the Seas of Slaughter times three, and the Tower of Laws.

Of course, I was the one doing the refining. The other Humanity was just running the intake!

"So that's why they said that!"

Absorbing everything indiscriminately meant the intake volume was huge, but the quality was all over the place and refining took forever? Please. The spiritual energy here wasn't even enough to fill the Seas of Slaughter — it was less than the Clouds of Killing Intent. Refining finished in a blink.

Spiritual energy leaked and drained permanently whenever you used it? So what? This was the Mental World.

A method that canceled every downside and maxed out every upside was only possible because the Humanity Clones and I were fundamentally the same person. On top of that, each of us had different talents, and I had the Mental World to work with.

If I do say so myself, the cheese was pretty solid.

"Right? We all agonized over this, grilling the elder one by one about every method's strengths and weaknesses, and picked the absolute best ones?"

"It was a nightmare. Mostly stuck between romance and efficiency."

"Okay, but why does the elder keep sneaking in every single time? Doesn't she know our thoughts are shared?"

"Well, the main body was playing with Cheon Nan-cho at the time."

"Kyaaak! How is that 'playing'?!"

"Hmm. Something the main body always thinks about — your tone gets angry, irritated, or laughing, but your face stays completely blank the whole time. From the outside, it's kind of a vibe-killer, you know?"

"There's no mirror. How would I know?"

"Just picture us going kyaaaak, kiiyaaak out loud while our faces stay deadpan. Our faces are basically the same, right?"

A tall beauty with not a scrap of baby fat left leaned forward, thrusting out her chest for emphasis, and smiled. I thought about it.

If I chopped off those uselessly long, oversized lower halves, ripped the chests off, and peeled the faces clean, maybe then we'd look alike.

"See?! That's exactly why we keep stabbing you with guilt at random hours — because you casually think terrifying crap like that!"

"What? What did you think— hiiik!"

"Quit fooling around and absorb the spiritual energy already. This is a secret realm, so even at your method's level you can pull it in, right?"

Because this place was a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠secret realm overflowing with spiritual energy, even two Humanity Clones who had some talent for spiritual power but were otherwise Mortal-tier with no spiritual roots could absorb it.

All we had to do was somehow control and take in the spiritual energy saturating the realm, refine it in the Mental World, and dump it into the Golden Core.

"Nice. Done."

I looked at the Golden Core — it hadn't grown much from a good ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meal of spiritual energy, but its radiance had deepened — and the moment I stepped out of the Mental World, I also stepped out of the collapsing secret realm.

Golden restraints seized my body. Flying swords shot from my blind spots, skewering me in place and pinning me down — and at the same time, a freak with a bare, muscle-packed upper body planted both hands on his hips, thrusting his torso out even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more dramatically as he revealed himself.

Ugh, my eyes!

"Auto-Battle!!!"

Faced with the horrific spectacle of writhing upper-body muscles on full display, I squeezed my eyes shut on instinct and shouted for Auto-Battle — but the system message that popped out made me flinch. I snapped my eyes open in a panic and hauled up slaughter energy just as—

"Demon Immortal! You won't call this underhanded, will you?!"

I was about to yell that it was underhanded — but the muscle mass had already flown right up into my face without so much as moving his arms or legs, still standing with both hands on his hips and both legs pressed together.

Fucking hell.

"Die, Demon Immortal."

A wall of muscle slammed into me.

Getting hit by a flying airplane would have left me in better shape. My upper body exploded into a mist of blood, leaving only the lower half behind.

The second I stepped out of the secret realm, two elite mobs slapped debuffs on me while a field boss sat in wait and fired off a finisher. What kind of bullshit was this even supposed to be?

And the visual trauma alone had stripped me of any chance to counter.

The blood mist clumped back together. My lower half, about to collapse bonelessly, planted its feet again, and the moment slaughter-energy regeneration finished, the field boss threw his head back and roared with laughter.

"As expected of a Demon Immortal! Then I'll simply smash you until you can no longer regenerate!"

A field boss wearing a Tier-1 prefix — the Immortal prefix.

A nightmarish affix loaded with defense boosts, healing reduction, damage reduction, and damage nullification all hanging off it like Christmas ornaments. It was also the rarest prefix to roll, and it happened to be the one on my main artifact — no, my Dharma Treasure.

The thought of fighting a field boss that had randomly rolled that thing made my mind go blank. And he looked like he could fight extremely well, too!

"...Transform."

I pulled up even the power of the Laws and giantized. With my physical stats jacked through the roof, I slapped Spoon onto my bare hands out of sheer desperation and clapped both palms together toward the field boss staring up at me, like I was giving him a round of applause.

"...?"

An absurd amount of resistance pushed back against both hands.

Muscle writhed in my grip. Spiritual energy surging inside it rolled and leaked out as if propping the muscle up, wrapping the field boss in a pure white radiance that blazed from both his eyes — and then he shoved my hands away with both arms.

My giantized arms, built of slaughter energy, cracked all over from that single motion as if they were about to shatter. Debris crumbled from my fingertips like sand. I thought:

Ah, fuck. I can't win this.

Worse, the minimap showed a dozen-plus red dots and gray dots forming a ring around the area on top of these three. Probably there to cut off any escape.

I briefly considered using them as potion fodder — then the field boss threw a punch from a standing start. The residual image of a giant fist made of spiritual energy suddenly split into dozens, then hundreds of fists raining down. I frantically deployed Chopsticks behind me and poured them out to meet the fists head-on.

The cascading chopsticks swallowed the residual-image fists and poured straight onto the field boss — only to bounce off his writhing muscle with a metallic kang!, every last one of them.

Okay, that couldn't be real.

"This goddamn game."

"Demon Immortal. The only reason you have survived this long after slaughtering powerless mountain folk and innocent cultivators is that most of our seniors and Golden Core cultivators had entered the secret realm that opens once every few thousand years in our Gi-gye."

Powerless? Mountain folk and innocent? Cultivators?

The reds and the neutral NPCs were just mobs. Experience points for a player like me to level up. If I didn't kill them, how the hell was I supposed to level?

More importantly — a secret realm that opened once every few thousand years?

Don't tell me that was the seasonal event I'd been locked out of by an Eok-kka event trigger. Meaning that place had been crawling with mobs and neutral NPCs at least my current level.

Good thing I didn't go in!

I ignored the Humanity Clones' sniping — you mean you couldn't get in — clicked my tongue, ignored the muscle that had started writhing again, and slowly shifted my gaze to one of the two red dots creeping up on either side of me.

Invisible. Undetectable. But once the minimap had tagged them, they couldn't slip free of it.

"Auto-Battle."

"What— Disciple!"

"Stop right there, Demon Immortal!!!"

Auto-Battle moved my body on its own. By the end, the elite mob clutched in my hands had been torn limb from limb and killed, restocking my slaughter energy for recovery — and at the same time, the Wheel floating above my head gained power and began to turn.

"UOOOOOOOH!!!!"

The field boss bellowed a howl more like a wail and crashed in as if his muscle alone could shatter space. I barely dodged and locked eyes with the remaining elite mob, who was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes.

"Die."

Crimson slaughter energy became death given the shape of a word, flew out, smashed through the golden restraints the elite mob poured out, and hit him dead-on. As the elite staggered, coughing blood, the dazzling barriers erupting from the Dharma tools he wore tried to shield him — I ignored them, raised Spoon, and muttered:

"Auto-Battle."

I reached into the chest of the elite mob whose head Spoon had just launched, pulled out his Golden Core, and tossed it straight into my inventory. Then I regenerated the entire ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠left half of my body — which the field boss's attacks had blown off in his desperate attempt to stop me — all at once with slaughter energy. The field boss, tears of blood streaming down his face, choked out a wet voice.

"I shouldn't have brought my disciples...!"

The muscle-mass field boss was so furious that every muscle had flushed crimson and was billowing white steam. So killing the elites first really did trip a different pattern.

"I swear on my muscle — I will kill you and offer you at my disciples' graves!"

Looking at the field boss, who clearly seemed to have dropped defense and spiked attack power, I reaffirmed the eternal truth that if a boss brought trash mobs, you kill the trash first — then spun the Wheel hard and threw myself back into the fight.