Heavenly Dao's Petal

Elite monsters carry enhancement effects known as prefixes.

Named monsters — the ones with actual names — possess special attack patterns that set them apart from the rigid, formulaic routines of ordinary mobs.

Boss monsters have ultimate skills, the kind that function just like a player's own abilities.

Field bosses project zones that grant them buffs. Raid bosses have a Phase Two.

No matter how much power the Field Boss Enhancement Mode was pumping into him, a field boss beating a raid boss's Phase Two was never going to happen. Not from the start.

"How dare you! How dare youuuu!!!"

The field boss was barely holding off the raid boss's assault with the countless techniques and magical implements he'd layered across his territory — the Samjong Sect — and his complexion was growing grayer by the second.

From where I stood, angling for the free kill, I couldn't afford to let the field boss die for nothing. That raid boss didn't look like a living creature at all, which meant my slaughter aura probably wouldn't work on it properly.

So of course, what I had to do this time was help the field boss. Give with one hand, take with the other — sure. But helping the raid boss? Not an option. I literally couldn't.

I unleashed my slaughter aura.

A crimson cloud of it billowed outward in every direction, thinning into mist before dissolving into the air, naturally blending into the ambient spiritual energy of heaven and earth around us.

Blended in — not gone. The slaughter aura was still very much there.

And the field boss, who drew power by absorbing the spiritual energy within his own domain, drank it right in. I could feel that slaughter aura. It was the karma I'd built by killing, after all.

Empowered by spiritual energy laced with slaughter aura, the field boss's counterattacks turned vicious. Cracks began to spiderweb across the body of the raid boss, still locked in its Phase Two.

Roughly half the slaughter aura I'd poured out was being permanently lost, but it was manageable. Because little by little, a red glint was seeping into the pure white radiance of the field boss's eyes.

He was a cultivator past level 300 who'd formed a Golden Core — under normal circumstances, he never would have fallen for this. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he was locked in a deathmatch against a guardian an entire realm above him. He didn't have the mental bandwidth left to notice someone screwing with him from the sidelines.

One slip, one moment of distraction, and he was dead. Of course he wouldn't notice.

"Begone!"

Only after confirming that the tattered field boss's enhanced assault had driven the raid boss to the brink of death did I shape my slaughter aura like spiritual power, revealing my presence — and at the same time:

"You little—?!"

I landed the last hit on the raid boss.

I swept the red-effect legendary event item into my inventory, dismissed the cascading level-up notifications from the last-hit experience on a raid boss over level 350 — non-living or not — and bared my teeth at the next prey.

Slaughter aura boosts attack power and tanks defense.

The Terror prefix sits proudly among the five worst trash prefixes in the game purely because of that defense penalty, which makes it sound like garbage — except I had regeneration on top of the attack boost, so I was fine.

But this field boss couldn't absorb slaughter aura the way I could, which meant no regeneration for him. He'd already burned through every technique and magical implement he owned in his deathmatch with the raid boss, and now the slaughter aura mixed into the ambient spiritual energy was jacking up his attack while shredding his defense.

And then, the slaughter aura still under my control went berserk inside his body all at once.

A Golden Core cultivator's flesh, too slow to even react, was something even a Foundation Establishment hand could carve through.

"Ah, shit. Completely cleaned out."

Unlike dungeon bosses or raid bosses, field bosses can be cheesed with every dirty trick in the book, so their drop rates are usually trash. But with Field Boss Enhancement Mode active, the drop rate should have been dungeon-boss tier at least.

Maybe cheesing it meant no drops. Figures.

But was it actually real that a level 300 field boss's last-hit experience outstripped a level 350 raid boss that had spawned as an event? Look at that brutal experience penalty for non-living targets.

I'd thought ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that eok-kka event had me dead to rights, and the sheer luck of surviving it pulled a sigh of relief out of me as I checked my inventory.

The existence of a legendary event consumable that bumped your realm up a full stage was one thing. The other details were what made my head start throbbing on their own.

The bonus stats you got from Limit Break were random...?

For real?

Was this shitty-ass game seriously incapable of doing anything in moderation?

"No, wait — it's a mod, so of course there's no moderation. That actually tracks. But still. For fuck's sake."

I was a veteran gamer. I'd done high-ceiling optimization runs, every concept play imaginable, masochistic challenge runs, and even dug into the mods themselves. And still, the first words out of my mouth were this is some bullshit — because the system really was that goddamn awful.

If this were still a game, I could've just burned time on invincible save-and-load techniques to force a high roll, or cracked open the mod and fixed it myself. But with the reality patch applied? It was just a pure, unfiltered garbage system!

"Status Window."

Five levels from the raid boss last hit, thirteen from the field boss last hit — was that even right? And the fact that I still needed twelve more levels before I could use the legendary consumable left a sour taste.

"...Trait Window."

I'd killed a field boss and a raid boss, and not a single trait dropped.

Traits supposedly had a chance to drop when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you beat monsters or NPCs higher level than you, but so far I'd only ever gotten two.

The first one, Crafting, gave a 50% chance to refund 50% of materials when crafting an item. The other was One Path, looted off one of the Samjong Sect elders — a simple broken trait that locked your spiritual energy to a single attribute and boosted acquisition of that attribute by 50%.

Except what I was stacking wasn't spiritual energy. It was slaughter aura. So I just kept Crafting equipped. The only real downside was that I'd unlocked the Crafting trait without the Crafting Window mod ever opening.

The condition for unlocking Auto-Battle was continuous hunting while stripped of free will. The condition for unlocking the Trait Window was continuously taking down powerful enemies. The condition for unlocking the Disposition Window was doing quests for — or killing — neutral NPCs.

So to open the Crafting Window, I'd probably need to actually craft something. Dharma treasures? Talismans, maybe?

"You wicked... you wicked spawn of evil!"

"Even the Sect Master has fallen to that slaughter fiend..."

"Is this the end of the Samjong Sect?"

I was busy checking my Trait Window and Status Window when the peanut gallery got unbearably loud.

"Ah."

Only then did I belatedly realize I'd wrung my slaughter aura nearly to its limit right in the middle of the battlefield between that eok-kka-event raid boss and the field boss.

Killing a field boss doesn't despawn the monsters on the field!

A glance at the minimap confirmed it — I was already surrounded by red dots. But something was off. They'd been yapping this whole time without any sign of actually attacking.

In that case.

Ambush. Turn a few of the weakest ones into potions.

Auto-Battle is god, and Prisoner Mode is invincible!

I scattered slaughter aura and charged the weakest early Foundation Establishment cultivators. I tanked the panicked attacks from the surrounding Foundation Establishment and Core Formation cultivators with my body, grabbed one fragile-looking cultivator's face, crushed it with a surge of slaughter aura in my palm, and with my other hand ripped out their spiritual root.

And so the wheel of slaughter began to turn.

"Aaaaaaagh!"

"Run! The Samjong Sect is finished!"

"Ah — my potions!"

A handful of Core Formation cultivators pinned me down just long enough for the elite cultivators who looked like elders to shield the weaker ones, activate what appeared to be Dharma treasures, and vanish somewhere.

I watched the dots disappear completely from the minimap with genuine regret, converted the remaining cultivators into slaughter aura, and still only managed a single level. Damn, the experience intake was miserable.

I sighed and zoomed out the minimap.

I'd completed 100% of the terrain scouting, which meant everything marked on that minimap was mine to find, recover, or claim.