I Have Returned!

"I'm back!"

The moment the base-return dumped me into my territory, I let out a victory whoop and flopped straight onto the ground, rolling around like a beached seal. I'd ground myself into paste in the Training Ground, then immediately had to go full psycho and wipe an entire map because of some eok-kka event. I was exhausted.

More precisely, I was done.

"Cheon Nan-cho! What are you doing?"

"...zzz."

"Oh. Sleeping."

I'd wondered what she was up to, half-buried in the dirt — turns out she'd just claimed a high-grade spirit field and was napping in it. Well, her original form was a plant. Maybe she was photosynthesizing.

Alright then.

Now what?

I scratched my head and opened my notepad.

1. Prepare to block the Heavenly Tribulation event.

2. Obtain an exclusive weapon.

3. Manage the base.

Thanks to a mountain of leftover stat points, every attribute was already maxed at the hard cap of 1,200. What remained was to push my realm up and challenge the Golden Core stage — and, at the same time, prepare for the class-exclusive Heavenly Tribulation event that came with it.

The exclusive weapon I could try again once I hit Golden Core. Base management was already being handled by Cheon Nan-cho as my proxy, so that barely needed my attention.

Wait. Maybe I should rest a little?

The thought flickered through my head ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for half a second — then I remembered my level, and the urge to rest evaporated on the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spot.

Level 299.

I'd only just scraped my way to a measly 299. On vanilla difficulty, a normal max level was 500. Ironman and Nightmare capped at 800. And for the absolute maniacs who'd poured their entire lives into this garbage game, Evil Spirit ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mode jacked the max level all the way to 1,200.

So what the hell was the max level supposed to be now that this thing had been reality-patched?

I had no idea, and that alone made me shiver.

I was a low-level scrub among low-level scrubs. And I was going to rest? At this level? For real? Was I an idiot? Was I half-assing this game? Playing for fun? In a reality-patched world? Are you stupid? Sure, I had save-loading and base-return — but I knew better.

One bad eok-kka event and you die with zero answers.

Regular eok-kka events were bad enough. Then there were the so-called Twelve Eok-kka Events — specific misfortune triggers designed to ruin you. Those murder-threats wearing the mask of "events" could waste my time and snatch my life whenever they felt like it.

So. So.

Stop whining and move, you useless piece of trash.

"...Haa."

With a small sigh I hauled myself up, headed for the training yard, and irritably opened the memo window to add one more item.

4. Level up.

I'd put it off long enough. The realm had to rise.

It was time to level.

I tallied the leftover stat points still sitting there even after I'd dragged every attribute to the hard cap. Then I burned everything at once — the essence of slaughter energy, the Golden Core fragments I'd cheesed together back in Core Formation, and the consumable for limit breakthrough.

From the shattered leftover points poured an endlessly refined, compressed slaughter energy. Riding that surge, the wheel inside my body answered, and the slaughter-forged core I'd built in Core Formation began to spin.

The first full rotation inside the slaughter core ate every last drop of refined slaughter energy the leftover points had produced. After that, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the spin picked up speed on its own, accelerating without any further push.

At the same time, I activated Heavenly Slaughter Art and Transformation.

I wrapped slaughter energy around myself — inside and out — and forced it to circulate faster and faster along its path.

As the wheel's spin climbed, the slaughter energy racing through my body began to set me on fire from within and without.

The wheel spinning inside the slaughter core threatened to melt even that core into liquid and pour it away — but the slaughter energy circulating through me, burning my body as it went, seized that purification and held it fast.

Through the qi called slaughter energy, I turned my body into a furnace and refined my essence by burning my spirit.

The source of it all wasn't spiritual energy carrying the primordial force of heaven and earth. It was slaughter energy, harvested by taking lives. Of course it was nowhere near enough spiritual energy to form a proper Golden Core.

As if it had been waiting for exactly that shortfall, a Heavenly Tribulation tore down from the distant sky, ripping straight through the slaughter-energy umbrella that served as the base's first line of defense.

Every defensive measure Cheon Nan-cho had built while diligently managing the base under my delegated authority shattered in a single instant before the tribulation.

The only thing that held even a little was the webbing spun by the Spider That Spins Threads of Lightning nested in Cheon Nan-cho — and even that tore apart almost immediately. The tribulation, as if it had no time to waste, plummeted straight toward the heart of the base: the training yard where I stood.

"I've been waiting... Transformation!"

The slaughter energy circulating inside and outside my body ballooned all at once. A colossal giant thrust up its short arms and brutally seized the falling Heavenly Tribulation.

True to a special skill from Immortal Hero mode, its raw, brainless power made me want to cheer. Flashing physical stats that approached two thousand, the giant — still wearing a child's face — hugged the captured tribulation tight and curled up like a fetus.

With the Transformation skill ballooning my body, there was no longer any need to separate inside from outside. Through the circulating path of slaughter energy, I crushed the core within me and the Heavenly Tribulation together and began to burn them into one.

This wasn't enlightenment of principle. It wasn't instinct honed through seeking the Dao. It wasn't intellect that pierced and understood all creation. It was purely vast slaughter energy — a miracle sparked by burning the glittering lives and lifetimes of living beings in a single instant.

Vast slaughter energy and the primordial force of heaven and earth, dragged down by the Heavenly Tribulation, fused into one. Inside that small body, a great Dao successfully took form.

The Great Path of the Golden Core.

The beginning of the Golden Core realm.

In system terms, I'd gone up one level!

Saying it like that makes it sound ridiculously cheap!

"Status Window."

Look at those clean stats. Limit breakthrough had bumped every attribute by a hundred.

A flash of admiration rose — then immediately died. Something on the Status Window was sitting there, glaringly wrong.

"What the hell is this now."

Why was there a question mark stuck to my race?

"Oh, that's actually good!"

Experience gain had jumped from 20% to 50%. A bonus from the limit breakthrough, maybe? Good things are good things!

The title One Who Fell the Ominous Star was just a flat 4% boost to all modifiers, so I swapped it back to Successor of Hwanga-gongdong. Every time I saw that other title on the Status Window, it would just remind me of eok-kka events.

"I woke up and I was Golden Core."

"Well, isn't that something!"

"No, this doesn't make any sense, okay? Even if I grew out of Golden Core fragments, I was supposed to endure the Heavenly Tribulation myself!"

"You did endure it, though. The two of us."

"...?"

"I left the sect's defenses to you, remember? The tribulation got weakened punching through all that, and I just swallowed the whole thing."

"...!"

I managed to talk the dazed Cheon Nan-cho into buying a roughly assembled explanation, then — before she could fully process it — yeeted her straight into Prisoner Exploration. After that I buried myself back in the training yard to settle my new realm.

From the Golden Core, spiritual power and slaughter energy now poured out naturally, flowing and circulating through my body.

If slaughter energy was a nine, spiritual power was barely a one — but considering it used to be less than a tenth of that, and factoring in the massive slaughter reserves I'd stockpiled in the Training Ground, I'd effectively gained a vast well of spiritual power.

"Oh right. The supreme-grade spirit stone."

I'd stashed it in the prisoner bag, and I'd just sent Cheon Nan-cho off on Prisoner Exploration, so of course I couldn't pull it out. I'd been planning to build a top-tier spirit field with it, or use the spiritual energy inside to train my spiritual power.

I pulled out a few mid-grade spirit stones instead and clumsily practiced handling the spiritual power in my body until I had a rough feel for it. Then, preparations done, I drew out the Wheel.

"Skill Window."

The new skill was Explosive Slaughter — something I'd picked up by feel while collapsing Tetris blocks, and apparently refined further when I'd wiped an entire map earlier. It detonated slaughter energy like a bomb.

"Rename skill: Bomb."

I cleaned up the skill name, stripping off the Chinese characters, then stared at the still-irritating Heavenly Slaughter Art. I wanted to rename that one too, but it was a foundational technique — locked, unchangeable.

Anyway. That wasn't the important part.

"Time to make an exclusive weapon."

I looked at Wheel, the skill frozen at 99 stars, and began pouring slaughter energy into the wheel I'd drawn out.