The Divine Beast's Nest

The one-eyed man rested a small bead upon his palm and peered into it with his crimson eye.

Within that tiny sphere, in the lower realm still visible, a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠girl remained chained to the pursuit of leveling up. Watching her, the man smiled faintly.

One must not grow too drunk on the sweetness of hope — and yet, inevitably, one leans upon it all the same.

Sealed inside a small stone chamber, silver needles driven through his entire body, limbs bound in gray chains, waiting out the remainder of his lifespan — even so, the one-eyed man slowly breathed spiritual power, no different from life force itself, into the bead.

"How to force the event you want!! Load!"

Well, if you just fill the trigger conditions and keep looping Save and Load, the event's bound to pop eventually, right?!

It only became possible once I hit Nascent Soul and could refresh my Save Point, after all!

Of course, there were a few problems with that too.

Loading a very short time window was fine, but load too often and the Save Point would blow up.

In other words, it was a structural problem of a shitty game whose save data just crashes.

I remember that past roughly seventeen loads, there was a sixty-percent-plus chance the save data — no, the Save Point — would explode!

Refreshing the Save Point also chewed through Slaughter Tribulation, so you couldn't do it too often, but for certain events you had to suck it up — that was what I used to tell the newbies.

Now that reality itself had been patched, I might as well get even stronger!

"Aren't you strong enough already, Main Body?"

"Right — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠unless you're climbing to the upper server, that is!"

"Huh? But stacking every event you can and pumping the character's specs is just the obvious play, isn't it?"

"And what are you going to do once you're that strong?"

"Well, raise the specs even more, obviously?"

I'd lucked into a class with no level cap to begin with, and back in my previous life the extreme-attack build was something I'd only tried once or twice while hunting builds on foreign sites before the Korean patch even existed — so it still felt fresh every time.

And honestly?

"It's fun."

I'd fallen into the game.

This world was a game.

One I'd poured over fifty thousand hours of pure playtime into.

And one that, in the end, had finished me because of it.

And yet the fact that I'd reincarnated, become a player, and could grow using myself as the character — the fact that every event and bug I remembered was still exactly the same —

"Ah."

"Another dud. Load."

To level up I needed to kill monsters around my level or higher, but there were no maps spawning anything over level 450, so I was stuck.

Events were the same story — only low-level map events ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were firing, which meant that unless they granted permanent stats or abilities, most of what popped up was pure garbage.

So in the end, I had to climb to the upper realm — the higher channel.

"Which means I need to find an Ascension Platform, or build one."

And Ascension Platforms were in the great cities.

To reach a great city the size of four ordinary maps stitched together, you were supposed to gather intel in a village or town, pin the location on the map, and head there —

"Except there's no information broker NPC."

Just like there were no blacksmith NPCs or shop NPCs, most of the convenience NPCs were missing thanks to this xianxia mod. So even when I tried threatening neutral NPCs just to get a direction —

"Ah, not this shit again."

Blocking region transfer entirely just because Evil Karma and Infamy were high — was that even fair?!

This was already the third time. At this point I had to assume the Divine Beast's Nest maps were laid out on all four sides of the great city.

And they were functioning as a defensive perimeter specifically to keep demon immortals like me out! Did that make any goddamn sense?!

If I could just get in, I could either work off the Slaughter Tribulation or slaughter whatever "divine beasts" they were — but I couldn't even enter, so there was nothing I could do!

"I hate wasting time like this! Load!"

Should I just give up on the great city?

But even if I did, no clear alternative presented itself.

If I couldn't use an Ascension Platform, I'd have to hunt down a specific material called an Immortal Ascension Stone for the climb — which meant wandering around either way.

"It'd be nice if a decent event showed up this time."

Of course, as if to mock that hope, the vast majority of events were absolute trash.

Slaughter Tribulation was only being spent, never stockpiled — I had to conserve what regenerated into the Sea of Slaughter Tribulation. Sure, Save itself ate a disgusting amount of Slaughter Tribulation, but that wasn't the only issue.

The real problem was that ordinary amounts of Slaughter Tribulation barely registered as a drop in the Ocean of Slaughter Tribulation anymore.

Literally like dripping one or two drops of water into a sea.

Unless I burned it immediately like a consumable for recovery, there was no realistic way to accumulate enough to matter.

"Again? This is the fourth time — so all four directions really are sealed off?"

Huh? It let me in? Why?

A yellow aura unfurled in front of me like a curtain, beckoning me to follow.

An ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠event? Or a trap? Well, if anything went wrong I could just Load again!

With that thought I followed the yellow aura — and there was a monster with multiple horns on its head? Wait, that was a green dot. Oh?

"A quest NPC?"

The yellow aura wrapped around a deer-like creature with six legs, and then the form shifted into that of a woman who looked at me.

"Do I appear as a green dot to your eyes, Demon Immortal?"

"Huh? Yeah! You've got a request for me, right? A wish! An earnest! Plea! Something like that."

That was what missions were, after all.

And more importantly, a quest reward from an Early Nascent Soul NPC was guaranteed to be good!

"...Yes. Vengeance. I... want vengeance, Demon Immortal."

A thick, viscous killing intent poured out of her.

My Nascent Soul immediately burst from my forehead, pulled out its cartwheel, wound the killing intent around it like thread, spun it into a cotton-candy mass, and started eating it — and the quest NPC didn't so much as flinch, just kept staring at me.

The killing intent kept coming without end.

What was this, some technique to raise my favorability?

Hmm! At this rate my affinity would climb all the way to Friendly NPC! She was green to begin with, so the gain rate was probably fast anyway!

"I'm Yu Hee! You?"

"Exchanging names, is it... Heh. Yes. One of the Four Great Divine Beasts of Gigagiljin — a descendant of the divine beasts who descended to this lower realm, only to be bound. I am called Yeonlim."

A pretty solid NPC! My Evil Karma and Infamy were so high that most quest NPCs wouldn't even exchange names with me unless they were prisoners!

Mmm, mmm!

"So, what can I do for you? Just say the word! As a player, I can handle any mission you throw at me!"

"Then... the vicious demons. Could you wipe out every last one of those vicious demon bastards?"

The quest registered in the quest window.

And with that alone, the conversation was over.

"The Vicious Demon Sect ends by my hand. I'll be right back!"

"So you're fine making enemies of every other cultivator in Gi-gye and turning them into your sworn foes."

"Huh? Too late to say no now — I already accepted the quest!"

Wrapped in Evil Karma and Slaughter Tribulation so dense they hung about her like fog, the Demon Immortal declared it with a blank face, her blood-red eyes glittering uniquely within that haze.

Yeonlim smiled and trembled finely.

Simply by allowing the Demon Immortal inside the protective formation, she — a descendant of the divine beasts — understood.

That thing was Evil itself.

Destroy it!

Destroy the Evil!

The blood of the divine beasts, the law sleeping in the lineage passed down through generations, sang of the Destruction of Evil and cried out for it — and she crushed that cry beneath hatred and rage.

When I was treated like a beast, you were powerless.

When dozens of cultivators pinned me down and I howled wretchedly in beast form, you never answered.

The agony of that day still burned into her heart like a brand, a stigma of pain —

And to her, that Evil was salvation itself.

A Heart Demon that had slipped in so naturally began to bloom — until a light tap on her shoulder made her turn her head, and she found the System constructs made of Slaughter Tribulation glaring at the Heart Demon.

The greatest feature of a green-dot quest NPC whose affinity had risen to Friendly simply by accepting a mission: no Eok-kka events.

The Quest Window and the Minimap seized the Heart Demon that had been targeting the quest NPC and Friendly NPC, tore it apart from both sides, and absorbed even the split remains completely —

"....."

But there was nothing to be done about the divine beast Yeonlim thrashing in torment on the brink of falling to her Heart Demon, then collapsing unconscious on the spot.