The Fourth Sea of Slaughter

Ah, this eok-kka event. It was the kind that made your character go completely rogue — burning through consumables on its own, murdering neutral NPCs, dumping money, charging high-level monsters, all kinds of free-range stupidity.

Normally, just losing control and having your character freeze in standby mode was only a Minor Misfortune level of annoyance. This one, though? This was the kind of event that made players want to throw their keyboards through a wall.

A nightmare eok-kka that vaporized carefully hoarded consumables, shredded the durability of gear you'd been nursing for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ages, and flushed your savings on useless junk items!

"Huh? Main body, we can still move?"

But the Humanity Clones had just counter-punched the eok-kka event.

With my consciousness riding the Wheel, perched above my body's head, I made a startling new discovery: thanks to the eok-kka, I could dump every single event onto the Humanity Clones without a shred of hesitation.

"No, we don't get the event ability boosts, Main Body."

Wait, why not?!

"Because we each have our own Status Windows, remember?"

Ah. Right.

"How about we just settle for tanking the control-lock eok-kka with our own power?"

Fine, whatever. Getting a break without events is ni—

Hold on. If I swap consciousness with you guys like this, doesn't that mean I can dodge events whenever I want?

"But Main Body, except for Seong-a, the rest of us are all Mortals. We can't react to Misfortune events or eok-kka events as fast as you can."

Yeah, fair. Shame. I thought I could outsource those too.

Thanks to the reality patch, certain eok-kka and Misfortune events with clear triggers and conditions could be twisted into something else entirely if you reacted fast enough — right before they even fired. So dumping everything on the Humanity Clones and kicking back wasn't exactly an option.

With that in mind, I settled in to watch the Humanity Clones clear the map while the control-lock eok-kka ran its course — and something felt off.

Aren't your drop rates way too high? This is completely different from when I run Auto-Battle. And the grades on the drops feel higher overall, too.

At one point, a Humanity Clone even switched off Auto-Battle for a spell experiment, manually burning spiritual energy to barely scrape a kill on an elite monster — and Epic and Unique items came cascading down in a shower.

What the hell is going on? Why am I the only one with garbage drop rates?

Slaughter energy? No. Even if they're wearing a Late Golden Core cultivator's body, the Humanity Clones are still just Mortals. Without Auto-Battle and skills, they couldn't even fight monsters properly.

And since Auto-Battle and skills all come paired with slaughter energy, that rules slaughter energy out as the problem.

So what is it, then?

The Humanity Clones kept diligently clearing the map, and map objects started popping up left and right — treasure chests, dungeons, even secret rooms. From my perch on the Wheel, I held my breath.

Beginner's luck? RNG? Some kind of heavenly fortune?

The Wheel turned.

Slaughter energy lanced out from it, and the Wheel itself surged forward, grinding a monster that had been lunging ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at the Humanity Clone piloting my body into paste — then absorbed the corpse straight into slaughter energy.

Absorbed?

To conserve slaughter energy, and to maximize the slaughter energy gained from a kill, I would swallow a monster's blood, flesh, and corpse whole, converting everything into slaughter energy. A completely natural process for me.

Looking closer from the Wheel, I realized: during combat, the Humanity Clones only used Auto-Battle and skills to kill. They never absorbed the slaughter energy.

Of course they didn't. Absorbing slaughter energy was exclusively my ability, my talent.

So it wasn't that kills by the Humanity Clones had higher drop rates — it was that monsters whose slaughter energy hadn't been reclaimed dropped items at a higher rate. That was my working theory. But then… why were map objects also spawning in front of them this often?

Huuuum.

I turned it over and over, but no answer came.

I decided that once the control lock lifted, I'd deliberately delay my instinctive reclamation of slaughter energy while hunting, just to check the drop rates — and right then:

"Oh. It's the Training Ground."

No way. Is this even real?

I entered without a second's hesitation. If some event went off and smashed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Training Ground entrance, I might actually cry.

"Technically, we'd be the ones crying for you!"

Shut up and hand over the body.

Stepping into the Training Ground freed me from every event, so I ignored the scraps of eok-kka still lingering and reclaimed full control of my body.

Raising spiritual energy increases experience gain.

And right now, without a limit break, I can't level up no matter how much experience I earn. So do I really need to keep spiritual energy and slaughter energy in balance?

"Transform."

I fired Transform and Spoon at the same time, skill-crafting while yanking slaughter energy as hard as I could. Stats? Once I'd already pulled the event probability, stats would climb on their own as long as I held out.

So right now, the only thing that mattered was slaughter energy.

It was a fact that if I couldn't crush a fight with stats or slaughter energy, I struggled. So why not just stack enough slaughter energy to crush everything?

Stats had a ceiling. Slaughter energy was a limitless force that didn't even show up on the Status Window. As long as the Status Window's foundation held, I could pile it on without end.

And now that I'd built Seas of Slaughter and completed their circulation — regenerating the slaughter energy I spent every time I used it — more was always better. No question.

"So here… I'm building the fourth sea."

I killed and killed the legions of training dummies, endlessly swelling and amplifying my slaughter energy, then wrenched open the entrance to the Mental World through the Wheel.

Crimson words of pure slaughter energy transformed into the force of the world's laws. It was a power far removed from simply wishing for death — but this was the Training Ground, so I could force it.

The Wheel floating above Yu Hee's head became the axis, a sun vomiting slaughter energy that lit the tiny Training Ground. Every direction drowned in a Sea of Slaughter. Each time the waves rolled, the training dummies caught in them were shredded or crushed to pulp by slaughter energy.

Forcing the Mental World into reality still burned an obscene amount of slaughter energy, even with my True Name Dharma Treasure — the Wheel — as the axis, and even with the space limited to the tiny Training Ground.

Which was exactly why I could only do it here.

Unlike the brief, temporary summon I'd used to detonate a massive burst of slaughter energy against the angel, anchoring it to my True Name Dharma Treasure and building it as a temporary construct made this something closer to a proper technique.

And if I got lucky, maybe it'd even register as a skill. Holding onto that hope, I kept the Wheel spinning without rest.

The cycle of slaughter energy generated by grinding training dummies in the Training Ground flowed through the Wheel into the linked Mental World. In return, the great ocean of slaughter energy overflowed, waves sweeping the Training Ground and killing every dummy that respawned — a perpetual motion machine, complete.

The only catch was that it wasn't fully automatic. Because the construct was temporary, I had to maintain the whole setup myself, constantly.

"This is… so… damn hard…"

But the simple fact that my slaughter energy was growing was enough. I clenched my teeth until they ached and forced the Wheel to keep turning.

Training Ground usage time: roughly fifty thousand hours.

Once I was inside, time might as well have stopped. For the entire duration, I ground training dummies without pause, stacking slaughter energy higher and higher.

The longer slaughter energy chained together, the more it grew — compound interest. And with even a temporary link tying me directly and indirectly to the Mental World, pouring slaughter energy into the construction of a fourth sea, that growth was even more vicious. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠felt it in my bones.

Even with the Heavenly Slaughter Art nearing Master rank and Transform active, jacking my physical stats as high as they'd go, my body started screaming under the ever-swelling slaughter energy.

I held on and held on, trying to build as much of that fourth sea in the Mental World as possible. The Status Window endured — but my body, apparently deciding this was beyond it, flushed red and began to steam white smoke.

"What are you doing? Help me already! I didn't get this greedy just to settle for this much!!"

Ack! Main Body's putting us to work too!

Couldn't she just dial back the greed a little?

She's about to burst and die, and now she's dragging us in? Look at this!

Enduring the pain, I barely managed to open my mouth and shout the thought at the Humanity Clones — and the little bastards immediately started raising hell. Even so, they seemed to agree my logic was sound, because they all poured out of the Golden Core's inner world at once.

And right now, temporary or not, the Training Ground had a Mental World of crashing slaughter-energy oceans realized inside it. Naturally, the Humanity Clones donned bodies of pure slaughter energy and appeared one by one around me like clones, forming a circle with me at the center.