A Miraculous Defeat

Honestly, I wanted to grind an entire [City] or [Fortress] into experience. Last time, the reason I'd managed to haul in enough exp to reach Golden Core at all was because I'd spent the time to convert a whole fortress into raw experience points.

Of course, the moment the humanity clones inside me locked eyes with that thought, they all raised their consciences like weapons and steeled themselves with the grim resolve of people ready to riot if I actually tried it — so I quietly shelved the idea.

"Maybe I should stop using Auto-Battle."

There were so few mobs on the map that the exp penalty from Auto-Battle was starting to feel wasteful.

But Auto-Battle fought so much better than I did.

"I should get used to manual combat, though."

Not that I had any creativity of my own — I was just copying Auto-Battle. Still, after watching it fight for so long, even a half-assed imitation produced a decent amount of combat power.

A decent amount. That was the key phrase.

"KYAAAAAAAK!!!!"

The elite monster unleashed a wide-area sonic attack complete with sonic booms, proving that the Tier-1 prefix was not just for show. It was genuinely strong.

Every ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Chopstick I fired got deflected by the sound waves. When I tried to one-shot it with the transformation skill, it dodged instantly. When I charged in with a Spoon raised to cave its skull in, it didn't even attack — it just shoved me away with pure sonic force.

How do I put this. It was a monster that actually knew how to fight!

"Kikikiki!"

"You're laughing at me? Fine. Screw the exp penalty. Auto-Battle!"

And I lost like a complete dog. Not me — the enemy monster had miraculously won! What the hell was its problem with me specifically?!

I casually ignored the humanity clones' pointed questions about whether this was my own fault for burning through slaughter energy and skills trying to fight manually, tanking my Auto-Battle win rate into the dirt before flipping the switch.

I spent a week as a prisoner, dangling as a trophy necklace around the monster's neck. The moment the prisoner status lifted, I tore off the restraints ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sealing my spiritual energy and slaughter energy using pure physical stats alone, tanked the resulting explosion with my bare body while regenerating through it, ambushed the panicking elite mob, and Auto-Battled it into paste.

So much for trying manual combat. I'd just wasted an entire week.

I dumped a rain of Chopsticks onto the elite monster's underlings as they screamed and fled, wiping them all out, then smashed everything in the vicinity out of pure irritation.

Come to think of it, the elite that had taken me prisoner had been going on about offering me as a sacrifice to the Twin-Headed something-or-other. That was probably this map's field boss, right?

I was still furious.

Seriously — how low was the probability of a Miraculous Victory popping, and it had to go and proc on me?!

I drew Tatar's Wheel.

The wheel settled above my head and began spinning rapidly, dragging out a massive volume of slaughter energy. Waterspouts of slaughter energy erupted from the Sea of Slaughter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in my Mental World.

Slaughter energy flooded across the entire map. Without the slightest attempt at concealment, a malevolent force that wanted every living thing dead blanketed the map, spreading out in search of life to extinguish.

The speed at which the fog of slaughter energy engulfed the whole map was incomparable to my Core Formation days. I hadn't even bothered disguising it as spiritual energy, and the existence of my dedicated weapon had inflated the propagation speed even further.

Naturally, this was the equivalent of a map-wide taunt that would pull every neutral NPC and the field boss itself — but Yu Hee, already half out of her mind from mashing the [Rage] emotion expression in irritation, did not stop.

"I'll kill every last one of you."

The status abnormalities stacked at terrifying speed. Ninety-nine stacks — the final stack came in an instant. A few of the humanity clones had joined in, stabbing the [Rage] emotion expression with their consciences for good measure.

And before the hundredth stack filled, I activated the transformation skill and mashed the [Rage] emotion expression one last time.

Physical stats of roughly 2,200. Add the 100% increase from the Rage-triggered status abnormalities, then stack the additive 50% from the transformation skill on top of that, and you got a monster with a monstrous 5,500 physical stats indiscriminately spamming basic attacks in every direction!

And just like that, I got hit with an ironclad freeze...

I'd always thought map destruction only became possible by bug-pushing stats past 5,000 — but apparently you could do it by legitimately? pushing past 5,000 as well.

Or maybe it was because this was the lower realm. Switch to a higher channel and 5,000 stats wouldn't be enough to crack a map.

No, wait — why hadn't the stat cap even kicked in? Did Golden Core's maximum stats go past 5,000?

Did I have to fill that out completely and then break through the limit? That was depressingly bleak! Those were the kinds of thoughts I was having when I realized something more important than being forced to waste three years stuck at base: the auto-save had triggered.

"...Maybe I should try the sect quest again."

As a cultivator, the proper approach would be to level up, raise your realm, and only challenge it once you reached Nascent Soul. The humanity clones inside me apparently disagreed.

Now that reloading was possible, their argument was to slam into it as many times as it took — raise the odds, find a bug, pull some cheap trick, whatever worked.

I opened my inventory and pulled out the sect's old book for the first time in a while.

"Use."

Thank god it wasn't Dharma Treasures or techniques. Those two were Deity Transformation-tier — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠completely beyond what I could handle. Just entering the event map would kill me!

What came out of the property recovery event was a giant at the Nascent Soul level, carrying a mountain on its back. The problem was that the mountain was measured in kilometers — and naturally, the giant carrying it was several kilometers tall itself.

Even if I pushed my transformation skill to the absolute limit, I'd be lucky to hit one kilometer!

I looked up at the giant — whose sense of scale seemed completely broken — and was in the middle of a deep, weary sigh about what the hell I was supposed to do about this, when it happened.

Previously, no matter how hard I'd pushed the transformation skill, drawn out slaughter energy to attack, or tried to kill it with my natal Dharma Treasure, the giant hadn't so much as flinched. The moment it entered the map, it turned its gaze on me.

"Gwah?!"

I nearly bit my tongue, made an idiotic noise, and frantically activated the transformation skill, inflating my physical stats to withstand the pressure of that gaze.

"How has a child come to this place..."

"Senior...?"

What the hell — the red dot on the minimap had instantly shifted to green, the color of a friendly NPC. I asked again while tanking the gaze with raw stats, and the giant bearing a mountain on its back extended its right hand toward me.

"Do not be afraid, little one. Take out the covenant."

"The covenant?"

"Hmm... you are far younger than I expected. Here — I shall take it out for you."

Operating on the firm belief that a friendly NPC would never screw me over, I stayed still — and the transformation skill forced itself on, making my body grow. Even then, I was only large enough to climb up onto the palm of a giant the size of a mountain.

"There, little one. How did you come to be here?"

From "child" to "little one" — I was being treated like an absolute baby!

Trembling, I pulled the record book from my inventory. Even after using the Laws to temporarily enlarge it, I wondered whether a giant who seemed to have reached the peak of Nascent Soul could even see it — but apparently it saw it perfectly well.

"A successor...!"

Killing intent erupted from the Nascent Soul giant.