The World Does Have Impossibilities

There is such a thing as impossible in this world.

Splash!

A silver streak tore through the air, and three vampires went tumbling across the floor.

The guards collapsed without even managing to resist. I slipped into the castle's interior as smoothly as flowing water, then headed straight upward.

─Intruder!

─That lunatic…!

─Stop them!

I'd kicked up even more of a ruckus this time, so a larger swarm of vampires came flooding my way — but it didn't matter.

"Ghk?"

"What the—!"

"My eyes!"

The moment brilliant white light burst from my body, the vampires clutched at their faces and rolled screaming across the ground.

Pure, unadulterated light — harmless in itself, with barely any killing power behind it.

Leaving the flashbanged vampires writhing behind me, I reached the top floor in exactly one minute.

Three branching corridors stretched out before me.

"I was planning to take the proper route this time, but watching the exact same thing over again would just be boring, don't you think?"

I had already cleared this place during testing, assassinating each vampire one by one or taking them head-on. There was no reason, whether for the stream or for the run itself, to show viewers the same scenes twice.

The guards, though, absolutely had to be captured for entry purposes.

I walked down the blood-stained corridor just as I had back then. My reduced stats made my body feel heavy, but not so much that I couldn't walk.

"Yes. Today I'll be teaching you the fundamentals of fighting the Progenitor."

Clack! Before entering, I ran through my equipment check. No issues.

With a slow groan of hinges, the doors opened.

As if to embody the lord of all vampires, the throne room's interior was adorned in crimson. The walls draped with red flags made the blood in my veins howl at a single glance, and the throne upon them seemed to have abandoned its former master and rejected all who still drew breath.

Click.

And then — the master of it all.

"...Unnie?"

Rasty appeared.

"What are you doing here? Unnie, why would you—"

"Am I not allowed to come?"

"You're not. Wait, why are you talking formally?"

Rasty eyed me warily. Then, as if something had struck a nerve, she jerked backward with a start and moved her hands on pure reflex.

"Rasty."

Fangs erupted from the floor beneath me. She should have said her piece first and then used her skill — but Rasty was so flustered that she'd cast it early. The small mercy was that she hadn't changed the technique itself.

Dodging the fangs that aimed for my life, I launched myself into the air. The blade of a fang just barely missed its mark and froze solid where it stood.

"That was too fast. You should have waited at least ten seconds."

"...So why are you here?"

"Why else would I be?"

Clack!

Silver bolts infused with the power of purification slid into place, and the structure of my anti-vampire crossbow shifted and reconfigured. Light gathered along the bolt.

"I came to catch you. Progenitor."

The bolt of light streaked toward Rasty.

■

"...Ugh!"

Rasty wrapped herself in the Veil of Blood and deflected the bolt. With a hiss of sizzling, the veil peeled back slightly where the arrow struck — but it still held. The bolt never so much as touched her.

However.

Fwoosh-fwoosh!

"...Seriously."

The Progenitor's blood is her reason for being — her very essence. She shrugs off nearly any damage without feeling it, yet divinity infused with the power of purification brings the Progenitor agony.

Every drop of blood the Progenitor commands falls under her dominion, which means any of it that touches divinity causes her pain. Of course, she could simply sever her connection to the blood and be done with it.

But the difference between blood still bound to the Progenitor and blood cut loose is enormous. You could say it determines seventy percent of a technique's potency right there.

And I was aiming precisely at that gap, firing my crossbow with cunning precision.

Shhhk-shhhk-shhhk!

Blades of blood came flying. There were enough of them to fill the entire throne room—

Splash!

—but with my silver sword shimmering with divinity, I deflected every last one rather than shattering them.

I can't destroy them. Not yet.

Under current conditions, deflection was all I could manage. Tzing! The threads of blood threading between the blades I cut away or flung back using their own momentum. I couldn't block everything, so wounds opened across me — but wounds were nothing a bit of regeneration couldn't fix.

Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh!

"Unnie!"

"What?"

I tilted my head at her, crossbow already hammering out another burst of automatic fire. What?

"...Fight fair."

"I am fighting fair."

"Ggh…!"

Rasty is no fool. She is the sovereign of the blood nobles, a being who has lived for thousands of years, and the possessor of wisdom so vast it borders on the immeasurable. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠If she so chose, she could shred the current me to ribbons with dozens of different blood magics. She could unleash eerily grotesque authorities and drive me to my absolute limits.

She had been a demonkin's test subject, after all — and where the celestial race excelled at weapons and physical prowess, the demonkin were hailed as the "gods of magic."

"You're combining four blood magics right now — fangs, chains, threads, and blades. So I'm doing my best within my own limits to match."

"......"

But the techniques currently available to her numbered only four, aside from the protective Veil. And even those were the bare fundamentals of blood magic — equivalent, in human terms, to Fireball or Light. The Progenitor was simply wielding those fundamentals in monstrous ways.

Clunk!

The crossbow shifted once more. The weapon that had been firing dozens of duplicated silver bolts with each pull twisted and reformed again. The moment the weapon-modification magic finished its work, I leveled the crossbow at Rasty once more.

Bolts erupted out with a thunderous roar. Rasty instinctively threw up her veil to stop them—

"......"

BOOM!!!

—and an explosion of light swallowed her whole.

The moment the veil was annihilated in a single exchange, Rasty's arm burned black and shriveled. She regenerated the limp limb while glaring at me.

It wasn't that she'd failed to block it. It wasn't that she'd failed to dodge. It was simply that the restrictions placed on her — and the portion of her power she'd been permitted — allowed only this much, and she'd accepted it quietly.

"Unnie."

"There are a lot of restrictions on you, aren't there?"

"Stop talking formally."

"Well, you could consider that I'm under restrictions myself."

My original benchmark: the enlightenment of someone like Yena or Leo, a physique only slightly stronger than the Sword God's, and perfect memorization of every attack pattern. Those were the conditions under which I was fighting the Progenitor.

As for the formal speech — Rasty would be working as a "Professor" going forward, so I was showing a certain consideration. A dean tossing casual banhm around at her own faculty member would look bad, no?

"I'm getting angry."

But apparently Rasty ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠didn't appreciate the gesture. A thick, deep blood authority began to flow out from her heart.

The magic permitted to Rasty numbered five in total — and of those, exactly once, when she was driven to the brink, she could unleash a single overwhelmingly powerful spell. It was my own form of consideration, compensating for the restrictive conditions she was forced to fight under.

And that consideration leveled itself at my throat.

"That's strange. Normally everyone loves it when you speak formally. Even Uncle Inom does—"

"I hate it. I heard it every single day back then, and now you want me to listen to it again?"

"You could just tell me to stop."

"That's not the same thing."

"How is it different?"

"It just is. And don't ask when you already know the answer."

She was right. I did know. I'd heard it all long ago, when I first defeated her, and I'd heard it many times since, keeping her sealed in my soul and borrowing her power.

But the viewers watching didn't know any of it — so it needed explaining.

I holstered the hopelessly mischievous crossbow.

"Rasty. Feel free to get serious from here on out."

"...? You sure that's wise?"

"Yes."

Rasty hesitated for a moment.

In my current state, I was too weak to handle even the Progenitor's false body. The only reason I'd been toying with her at all was that her usable techniques were limited and her patterns fixed: every attack she made inevitably led to a specific skill, every movement dictated exactly how she would respond. Honestly, unless you were a fool, it would be stranger not to break through, given this much power.

Of course, if the false body used every ounce of its strength and knowledge, there was no way the current me could win.

But.

This world is not decided by strength and weakness alone. Just as the young saint who had only just stepped into the world tore the wings from an angel and snapped the horn of a demon—

"I do have to show the world something at least once."

There is nothing impossible in this world.

"......Fine."

The blood surged. As if the world itself were cracking open, the flood of blood filling the throne room froze over with a bitter chill. A colossal pressure manifested upon reality.

The White Savior, summoned to my hand before I knew it, shifted into its hammer form and roared out divinity.

"This is enough to catch the Progenitor, as I've shown you. And from here on out — bonus stage."

"Hey."

"Ah — let's leave that one out, actually."

"Impossibility."

Let me correct myself.

The world does have impossibilities.