The Boss Who Parried Himself to Death

As if to smash apart my assumption that there was no way a single sword could block the countless chopsticks raining down from every direction—

He swung his blade just once, and every chopstick flying in from a different angle split clean down the middle and vanished. Watching that absurd spectacle, I finally started heating up a little myself, drawing up my slaughter energy.

Thinking something like Shame I can't use Auto-Battle since the opponent's a boss, I fired off chopsticks loaded with a Law.

It wasn't just about making them bigger. Ordinary size-alteration techniques had a glaring flaw—the greater the size difference, the more spiritual energy consumption skyrocketed exponentially, and the insides turned hollow like a cream puff, getting dismantled in an instant. Laws didn't have that problem.

Mass, weight, even the force and quantity of slaughter energy and spiritual power maintained inside, the destructive power itself—all of it genuinely expanded in a single moment. An utterly unfair structure.

"Kh?!"

The field boss cleaved the giant chopstick in a single stroke, yet still couldn't disperse the impact. He froze with his sword extended, body trembling—proof enough. And a gap that size was more than enough for me to drive a Spoon into him.

Or so I thought.

"...? What the hell. How did you do that?"

I'd been cut. It regenerated almost immediately, but just now my body had clearly been sliced clean in two—no spiritual energy, no presence, nothing. It had been a strike aimed at my Golden Core, but since my Golden Core currently resided in my Mental World, unlike ordinary cultivators, anyone wanting to attack it directly first had to cut through my Natal Dharma Treasure, the Wheel, and open the entrance to the Mental World.

"Cough..."

But as if he had no intention of answering, the field boss glared at me with bloodshot eyes, spat blood from his mouth, and raised his Natal Dharma Treasure once more, spiritual energy surging up in thick streams.

What the hell? I went out of my way to ask a question. Guess expecting an answer from a monster really was a waste of time.

Irritation flared up for no good reason, so I used Spoon, tossed aside the axe whose durability had crumbled to dust, pulled out a massive iron mace, applied Spoon again, and charged.

"What the fuck is this supposed to be?!"

I couldn't get anywhere near him.

Any equipment I used Spoon on got cut. Even when I forced my body forward while regenerating, I was sliced and shoved back. Stubbornness started kicking in, and even though I could have overwhelmed the visibly tiring field boss in one go with bombs or Laws, I slammed into him again and again—and nothing worked.

"...Oh, for fuck's sake."

The experience was generous enough that a single field boss jacked me up five whole levels at once—but watching that boss self-destruct without me ever properly closing the distance, his Natal Dharma Treasure sword snapping in half the moment he burned through every last drop of spiritual energy, just made me angrier.

He died on his own without even answering! I deliberately stuck to Spoon and Chopsticks without using bombs or Laws because I was thinking of taking him prisoner!

GYAAAAAAAH!!!!

It felt exactly like watching a monster that had been getting unilaterally wrecked suddenly start parrying every single attack, then die on its own from the parry damage.

The Humanity Clones in my head unanimously slammed down the verdict that no matter how you looked at it, this counted as my loss, which only pissed me off more. Okay, fine—if I'm the one who's pissed, then game-logic-wise he did win, but still!?

Filthy, lingering, and infuriating as hell!

"Hah... Calm down... Calm... Yeah. Okay."

Before the collapsed field boss's corpse could disappear, I stomped it to pieces with a foot wrapped in slaughter energy, scooped up the remaining body fragments still clinging to slaughter energy—material items, in other words—shoved them roughly into my inventory, spun the Wheel, and shot roughly into the air.

Venting. I needed someone to take it out on!!!

I tried hammering the [Rage] button, but the Humanity Clones threw themselves in the way to block it, and one of them stabbed me right in the conscience by saying, honestly, wasn't this getting a little pathetic?—which hurt so much I stopped.

Oh yeah? And what the hell do any of you know!

That's just because the real one doesn't know how to fight, one of the Humanity Clones said, and my head tilted.

What are you talking about.

The real me knows how to kill, not how to fight. I was swinging weapons around with Spoon slapped on them and I don't have a single weapon-arts passive skill to my name.

...Is that how it is?

Thinking back, I'd been so fixated on that field boss's trash prefix, Sharp, that I hadn't even considered it—but he did have "Sword" attached.

Was he a sword passive skill master?

Why the fuck would a cultivator train martial arts passive skills? Magic knights are a broken-efficiency trash romance build. Hybrid sounds nice until you strip it down—it's just a jack-of-all-trades mess!

If I'd had other passive skill books! Of course I would have learned them all! Setting aside the humble little problem that [Personal Trade Mode] means there are no merchant NPCs selling skill books! And most of the skill books Cheon Nan-cho ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brings back can't even be used with slaughter energy!

"Wait a second. You—the one among you who was swinging a spear. Do you have a spear arts passive skill?"

Maybe I just have talent for it. The same way the real one dumped all her talent into slaughter energy.

"Then why don't you try fighting for once?"

Wow. You're telling a Mortal to fight a cultivator. Real coherent argument there. Be honest—you just want to use us like a knockoff Auto-Battle, don't you?

"Tch. Busted, huh."

Busted or not, we're you and you're us, remember? We can read every single thought.

Even while carrying on that useless monologue with the Humanity Clones, I diligently flew around on the Wheel, sweeping the map, tracking the dots on the minimap and drowning them in chopsticks, harvesting experience.

Building up spiritual energy had paid off—the exp was pouring in hard—but monsters and neutral NPCs hit by slaughter energy were dropping noticeably fewer items, so I almost never had to land to pick things up.

No high-grade gear was dropping either, for that matter.

Still, levels going up was a good thing. Every so often a neutral NPC event would pop, and I could kill them and snag a decent amount of exp and loot.

I kill them and every kind of item comes pouring out? What are they, treasure goblins.

Anyway, I was in a good mood, pushing through misfortune events and fortune events, scooping up exp and drops, wiping maps as I wandered around.

"...Ah."

Lucky break—a sect and a fortress spawned at the same time.

This was huge.

"Which one should I hit."

Given how far my notoriety had spread, and remembering how NPCs had fled before, if I went to one place the cultivators at the other would all run for it. So I needed to choose carefully.

"Hmm. Fortress if I'm thinking exp, sect if I'm thinking drops."

After some deliberation, the decision went to an inner council meeting.

Democracy? Kind of pointless, isn't it? Your opinion as a cultivator matters way more than ours as Mortals anyway.

Wanting another perspective is fine, but we're still just Mortals.

Are you really going to take the opinions of Mortals who could vanish in an instant on a cultivator's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whim?

"Yeah. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠You're me anyway."

The inner council's vote ultimately settled on the sect. Wherever I went, looking ahead at the slaughter energy I'd be stacking, rising spiritual energy was basically indispensable for gaining that much exp—and the fastest, most efficient way to solve that problem was to strip one entire sect of every last resource it had.

Yeah. Even as Mortals, they're still me.

The Demon Immortal revealed herself at the sect called Scripture Valley Sect.

In the form of a small young girl, bearing 1,024 blood-red halos upon her back and a ring of starlight floating above her head—a literal catastrophe descending upon Scripture Valley Sect.

A baptism of chopsticks poured down like rain, each one so devastating that a mid-stage Core Formation cultivator would have to go all-out just to block one or two. Anyone below that was skewered and killed like insects. Elders who dragged out every last formation and restriction the sect possessed were torn apart bare-handed, and even the sect master who had reached the Golden Core had his core ripped away by the Demon Immortal and died in the midst of it all.

"...What. Why are you green?"

The Demon Immortal hadn't left a single cultivator unattacked.

No—I'd wiped out every NPC in the sect, so why was there still a green NPC left standing? Not even neutral gray. Green. Why?

Several red question marks bobbed above my head. No matter how I thought about it, when I'd first entered this map there hadn't been a single green dot inside the sect. Which meant something I'd done had turned this one from a gray dot into a green one.

And all I'd done was kill every NPC here.

Wait a second.

"You hated this place? This Scripture Valley Sect?"

The way the kid nodded made it certain. An NPC who'd been sitting on a quest to destroy the sect, huh. I'd completed the mission without even accepting it, so as a reward my favorability had just skyrocketed!

"Cool. Live well, then."

I didn't have time to babysit every friendly NPC. This one wasn't even my prisoner—and to bring a non-prisoner NPC back to base, favorability had to hit Trust.

Not that I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could even see favorability values, so who knew what the thresholds looked like! And since I hopped around via base teleport anyway, unless I was inviting them, I couldn't drag anyone along in person!