Asgard

The monkey's black head went sailing through the air. The other magical beasts flinched.

Already?

Almost none of them could match Sunghyun's speed once he had transformed into lightning.

The one creature that managed to keep up was the Shining Bird. It shot toward him at blistering speed, beak thrust forward—

But Sunghyun simply deflected the beak with his sword and, in the same motion, seized one of its wings with his free hand.

The Shining Bird thrashed, trying to wrench free.

"Kyaaaaaaak!"

Light erupted from its entire body, blinding him. In that instant, the wing in his grip seemed to dissolve.

Flash!

"What? Teleportation?"

The Shining Bird reappeared in a blink beside the Rock Tiger.

"Annoying ability."

Sunghyun counted the remaining beasts one by one.

"One, two, three, four… hmm. Seven? Eight, counting the monkey from earlier."

He licked his lips.

"This is fun."

Crackling electricity answered him, as if the lightning itself agreed. Surging with mana, Sunghyun launched himself at the most troublesome target—the Shining Bird.

Only the Shining Bird reacted to his speed.

In that case—

"Without you, this is a free win."

He thrust his sword toward the bird. It flared with light again, preparing to teleport—

"I've already seen that once."

Sunghyun activated Fire and aimed for its head.

Red flame and lightning fused into a single bolt and tore toward the bird at a terrifying velocity. It arrived before the creature could complete its teleport.

Zzzzzzt—

The Shining Bird was reduced to a roasted carcass.

"Do you call that electric barbecue in a situation like this?"

Whoooosh—!

Something shaped like a bull opened its maw and unleashed a sonic blast straight at him.

"Ghk—!"

Sunghyun clapped his hands over his ears—and in that opening, the Rock Tiger, immune to sound, charged.

He cycled Taiji. Harmonization. To match the frequency of the sonic wave, he set his blade vibrating.

Huuuummm—

The moment his sword oscillated at the same frequency as the bull's roar, the air around him fell silent.

In that same instant, a stone-plated paw came crashing down.

BOOM!

Sunghyun snapped his head aside, then swung.

CLANG!

The tiger's rock hide was no ordinary stone—it deflected his blade with nothing more than a shallow scratch.

"Oh?"

He was already at its face. He raised his sword and drove it straight into the Rock Tiger's brow.

Thud!

"Can't cut it—but stabbing works just fine."

The beast collapsed.

"Two down. Six left."

"Piiiiiieeek!"

A piercing shriek rattled his eardrums.

"Finally showing yourselves?"

While the Rock Tiger, Dark Monkey, Shining Bird, and Sonic Bison had been attacking him, four other creatures had simply watched from the rear. Had they all piled on together, Sunghyun would have been in real danger—but they had observed the fight with arrogant eyes, waiting. They must have decided his stamina was finally low enough to tip the odds in their favor.

"I think you all are laboring under a bit of a misunderstanding."

Rrrrrumble—

The moment his average level hit sixty, the atmosphere shuddered. Unprecedented currents of energy rose around him.

Level 60.

In Hermes's dimension, that was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠exclusive domain of those called Masters. In short, Sunghyun—having pushed both body and mana to sixty—was now fundamentally different from what he had been before.

Seeing that, the magical beasts decided they could not afford to give him time to adapt.

"KRAAAAAH!"

A pure-white leopard roared and hurled blades of wind at him. Sunghyun's eyes went cold as he swung his sword.

Slash. Slash.

He had long since dropped Lightning Form. With nothing but raw mana control, he carved the wind apart. It was not a figure of speech—when he swung, every particle of air in the blade's path scattered.

That was what a Master was: someone who could bend the laws of nature, if only a little. Sunghyun had just stepped onto that threshold.

"Ha! This is starting to look dangerous, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠isn't it?"

The beasts' fur stood on end. One of them took a step back—

And Sunghyun activated Lightning Form.

"Don't even think about running from me. Not from anywhere my eyes can reach."

Slash.

The green tree giant that had hesitated ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was cleaved cleanly in half by a single stroke. Sunghyun was already standing in the middle of the pack, lightning roaring harder than ever.

Even an ordinary Master would have been a brutal matchup for these beasts. This Master was Sunghyun—and he still carried the lightning fragment Hermes had stolen from Zeus.

Zzzzzzzzt—

Crimson lightning began to scorch everything around him.

The white leopard that had first flung wind at him looked around with eyes full of terror.

Blink.

The crocodile—the one with the armored hide that had always competed with it for territory, spitting fire—was split in two.

Blink.

The bull that had constantly tormented it with sound lost its head to the ground.

Blink.

The crow that had led them here, the one that wielded curses, went up in flames.

Blink.

CRACK—

Lightning. Lightning struck right in front of it.

Blink.

It saw a pure-white leopard's body. Its own body.

Then a man's voice:

"Two left."

After finishing the white leopard, Sunghyun flicked his sword. Red blood sprayed through the air.

The last two beasts froze. The same thought hit them both.

Coming here was the worst decision of my life.

That thing is nothing like the humans who have entered this forest before.

That is—!

The thought did not last long.

Slash.

Both of their heads were airborne in an instant.

Having reached Master—what the murim called the Peak realm—Sunghyun felt a tremendous surge of exhilaration. He had to vent this power somehow, so he used more force than necessary.

Raising mana was supposed to be followed by a stabilization process. He simply did not have the time. He poured mana out recklessly while holding Lightning Form, and the lightning grew faster and stronger still.

The result: the moment Sunghyun thought of a place, his body was already there. Literally the speed of lightning. Nothing could react to him.

"Hoo… is that everything?"

He surveyed the surroundings. Charred black corpses. Decapitated corpses. A corpse with a hole through its brow.

"What a mess."

All of it was his own handiwork. He had no intention of lingering over sentimental reflections on a slaughterhouse.

"As always, all that's left is to smile at the account balance."

True to his word, he opened his status window.

"Accumulated quite a bit. Time to go catch that thing."

Before that, though—

"Might as well level up this Coin Market sitting at an awkward percentage."

"Let's see… Oh? Not bad."

B-rank had already offered plenty of useful goods. A-rank, though, was packed with items that translated directly into immediate combat power.

Plenty of options.

Plenty of appealing ones, too—but nothing that truly caught Sunghyun's eye. When he had first seen the trait Little Lightning, his instincts had screamed that he had to buy it. Looking at B-rank and A-rank goods now, that sensation was absent.

"Hmm… Do I just hold out until S-rank and above show up?"

Then a thought flickered through his mind.

Wait.

Hold on.

"Why am I only thinking of this now? I've got plenty of coins."

He closed the shop at once and pulled up the coin charts.

This was it.

His instincts were ringing. He considered what to buy. Market cap ranked them in that order, but the price per share was different for each.

At current rates: Titan ran 410 coins. Celestial was 184. Asgard 147. Myriad Demons 739. Earth—his own world—145.

He had already been thinking it was time to grow his coins through the dimensional market. Expanding the shop's selection by buying shares without that purpose in mind, though—that idea had not occurred to him until this very moment.

More precisely—

"There was no reason to. I had enough. No point burning a few hundred coins just to widen the shop."

But—

"I've got money now. Might as well start buying."

So. What to pick?

Once again, he trusted his gut. There had been a time when he distrusted that instinct—but experience had taught him there was no real reason to.

All right. Tell me. What should I buy?

One dimension sent a sharp, electric jolt through him.

Asgard?

After checking the top ten dimensions, Asgard made his senses ring the loudest.

"Asgard… That's the one I know, right?"

Almost certainly. He pulled up the detailed description.

"Looks right."

The reason Sunghyun already knew about a dimension like this almost certainly lay in his own world—the myths handed down since antiquity, the dimension where countless legends had been born. The thought made his heart race. Of course he wanted to know more.

"Not now. No need to dig into it yet."

He moved his finger and purchased a single share of the Asgard dimension.

Disappointingly, Coin Market's experience did not rise.

But—

"Huh. Trait experience went up."

Found it. A way to level the trait.