The Sword's Castle (5)
The once ashen walls of the castle were now soaked in crimson blood, hardened into a dark, rusty red. The neat, rigid brick floor had become uneven, littered with sprawled corpses, and slick with overflowing blood. The once-chilly entrance to the underground dungeon burned hot with the stench of blood and the screams of players. This place was, in a word, hell itself.
Players thrashed desperately to escape the hellscape.
“Out of the way! If we get out and unlock the stage fast enough, we might still survive!”
“The swordsman smashed all the stairs on his way down!”
“Climb somehow! Jam your swords into the wall if you have to!”
Against the Mad Swordsman’s stats, such efforts were meaningless. Anyone who fled first would simply be caught and decapitated.
BOOOOOOM!
Amid the scattered corpses, the blood-soaked, muscular swordsman Tobi endured another strike from the Mad Swordsman through sheer willpower. He looked ready to collapse at any moment. From behind, Lan tried to restrain the swordsman with her wind arts, but it only slowed him briefly. His armor was shattering in real time, proving the attacks weren’t weak, but the stat gap from his rampage was simply overwhelming.
‘Without that, Tobi would’ve died long ago.’
Whoosh.
A brief red glow flickered across the Mad Swordsman’s armor. The rampage effect. Another player who had already fallen to his blade had just breathed their last.
5th Rampage. Current stacks: 3. Elapsed time: 39 minutes.
“Does the 5th rampage grant an achievement?”
—If you kill him.
The chat window was half on fire.
“GRAAAAAARGH!”
With a thunderous roar, Tobi swung his greatsword. Even after being beaten and flung aside, he still had the strength to scream. The warrior’s fighting spirit. Taeyang’s eyes widened. Tobi was an NPC who didn’t use skills. That much was certain. If he could have, he would have long ago.
“Whoa.”
Perhaps he had gained enlightenment on the brink of death. The moment the skill manifested, Tobi’s movements grew faster and fiercer. But it was a meaningless boost. The Mad Swordsman’s footsteps were swifter, his strikes sharper. Tobi had grasped enlightenment at the cost of his life, yet against the rampaging swordsman, he was nothing more than a sturdier sandbag.
“GRAAAAAARGH!”
In hindsight, if Tobi had led the group from the start and stopped the swordsman, things might have turned out differently. But Tobi had stayed back, allowing the swordsman to slaughter other players and stack his rampage stats.
BOOM. BOOM. CRUNCH.
Bloodied and broken, Tobi dropped to his knees before the swordsman. He had lost so much blood that his expression was hidden.
Taeyang muttered, casually ignoring the chat.
“Hyeonhye, how much time left?”
—41 minutes. 1 minute until the 3rd rampage, 3 minutes until the 4th. The 5th rampage…
“Still a while, right?”
—Yeah, 5 minutes.
Only two players remained at the entrance of the hellish dungeon: Taeyang and the wind arts user, Lan. Naturally, the Mad Swordsman’s next target after beheading Tobi was Lan. The swordsman swung his blade through the air.
Whoosh!
His transcendent physique allowed him to unleash lethal sword winds without any qi assistance.
“Kyaaah!”
CRRRRRUNCH!
Lan swung her fan, dodging with wind arts. It was almost paradoxical. Taeyang watched calmly and loosened his body. The reason he hadn’t fled was simple: the other players had already escaped, leaving no more fodder for additional rampage stacks. This was the perfect moment to face the swordsman.
Nangpung.
Whoosh.
The wind art that had first dealt meaningful damage to the swordsman. But the swordsman, exposed to the wind, didn’t even flinch and continued his assault.
“Ugh!”
Lan desperately swung her fan and retreated. The sight of her frail arms wielding the massive fan as she fled was pitiful.
Punga.
CRRRRRUNCH!
This time, a drill-like wind pierced the armor, but only the armor. The Mad Swordsman roared in fury and kicked off the wall, launching himself at Lan. She swung her fan again to escape. It was razor-close.
“Even this isn’t holding up as well as I thought.”
—It’s 3-stack rampage. The fact she’s lasted this long is impressive.
Whoosh.
Lan gritted her teeth as she swung her fan.
“I should’ve stayed out of it if I knew it’d be like this.”
The moment she failed to defeat the swordsman alongside Tobi, the game was over. More precisely, the instant she lost patience and acted first while confronting Taeyang, she had lost. From that moment, the Mad Swordsman’s aggro had shifted to Tobi’s group, and escape became impossible. Lan had spotted several chances to flee during the fight, but the swordsman’s speed made outright running suicide. The metallic scent of blood filled her nose. She had allied with Tobi to avoid this stench, only to end up in the heart of the bloodstorm.
Shhhk!
“Hnn!”
Lan twisted desperately in midair. This time, the blade grazed past her shoulder. Blood seeped from the torn fabric. Then she spotted Taeyang. Her pupils dilated.
“You didn’t run?”
At a time when every other player had already fled?
Her mind raced. Tobi was dead. The only one left in this space was that man. Why had he remained while others escaped? Her thoughts reached a conclusion, and her eyes widened further. He had a method.
Whoosh!
The Mad Swordsman’s savage strike came crashing down. Lan dodged and screamed.
“Please! Help me!”
Her voice was desperate, a stark contrast to her earlier cool demeanor.
“Huh? You talking to me?”
“Who else is here besides you?!”
Whoosh!
A razor-sharp sword wind carved into the ceiling of the first floor, which also served as the floor of the second. Lan pleaded again.
“Please help me! You said you knew how to clear it!”
Taeyang shrugged.
“Why should I? Just buying time like this is already convenient for me.”
“I’ll support you when you fight the swordsman! You saw me with Tobi! I’m useful!”
Whoosh!
A blade thrust past Lan’s shoulder as she spoke. She barely dodged and created distance again. Taeyang replied softly.
“Why would I trust you?”
It was a fair point. Taeyang had no reason to trust Lan. She bit her lip. Pride made her want to negotiate further, but the situation offered no mercy. Finally, she gave in.
“I’ll swear it to the wind! To the mountain breeze that brushed my nose as a child! To the mossy wind that filled my lungs! To the bloodstorm raging around you!”
“……What the hell are you saying?”
Mana reacted.
—Not sure, but it’s probably a wind arts user’s unique oath.
Maybe. The martial dimension Changchen, unlike Earth, had always possessed qi. What mattered was that Lan, now filled with hope, was dodging the swordsman’s attacks with even more irritating agility. Taeyang pressed further.
“Swear you won’t harm me and will only help?”
“I swear!”
“Swear you’ll live for me until you die?”
“That’s…… Kyaaah!”
Taeyang continued calmly.
“Or don’t. If you’re scared, just die.”
Honestly, even Taeyang wasn’t sure what he was saying. The words just spilled out.
“If I die now, you’ll……”
“Yeah. I have a way to deal with him. You don’t know that, do you?”
—Seriously…… Unbelievable.
Finally, with tears in her eyes, Lan shouted.
“I swear!”
“What?”
“I swear! That I’ll live for you until I die! I swear it to the wind!”
“GRAAAAAARGH!”
Whoosh.
Lan dodged the blade by a hair’s breadth again. Her arm trembled as she swung the fan. Anyone could see she couldn’t fight any longer.
“Okay, contract established.”
For the record, he hadn’t calculated it. He had just been running his mouth and it turned out this way.
……Really.
Taeyang launched himself forward.
“GRAAAAAARGH!”
Faced with the Mad Swordsman charging with terrifying momentum, all stray thoughts vanished. Taeyang sprinted toward him and activated Transcendental Jin-gak.
Shhhk.
He bent at the waist to dodge the horizontal slash.
Transcendental Jin-gak – Yama’s Kick.
He kicked upward.
CRAAAAASH!
Thud.
Taeyang’s kick connected cleanly with the swordsman’s jaw, infused with mana.
“GRAAAAAARGH!”
But the Mad Swordsman swung his blade as if it meant nothing. A diagonal slash rising from the lower left. Taeyang stepped right and let it pass. Normally, this would be his turn. It should have been. But the physical difference was too vast. The swordsman rammed into Taeyang with his shoulder while still holding his sword.
“Kuhk.”
An overwhelming gap in physical ability. The swordsman even chased after the falling Taeyang with a thrust. Taeyang twisted his body.
Thud.
“Kgh.”
The blade pierced Taeyang’s right side. He had twisted desperately and avoided vital organs. Gripping the sword, Taeyang forced down the blood rising in his throat.
“Whoa, he’s no joke.”
—Of course not. At 3-stack rampage, he could probably trade blows with named monsters from floor 15 onward.
Hah. So floors 15 and beyond are filled with monsters like this. Sounds fun. Taeyang snorted softly.
“How many minutes now?”
—45. You need to rewind 10 minutes.
Taeyang reached into his pocket and pulled out the pocket watch, Greatest Machinery.
“GRAAAAAARGH!”
Looking at the Mad Swordsman, Taeyang pressed the second button. The second button meant one thing.
Rewind.
Very few players had obtained the Greatest Machinery, and scenes of it being used were extremely rare. Thus, few players truly understood its functions. Information was expensive, after all—Dantalion intel was often sold at high prices to rankers. The fact that fast-forward had five stages had only spread because Post Arc had openly explained it on stream. Incidentally, Post Arc had died during that very broadcast as the price for wasting the artifact. In any case, this broken artifact had yet to be fully analyzed. The rewind function especially so. An extra life granted through rewind was far too precious to waste in the dimensional labyrinth, where death could come from anywhere at any time.
The description text for rewind:
Restores the body to peak condition. (Cooldown: 12 hours)
Players assumed “body” referred only to themselves. They were wrong. It could affect others. Party members. Even enemies.
45 minutes. The swordsman had first appeared 18 minutes ago. The first rampage had occurred 13 minutes ago. The second rampage, 11 minutes ago. And the seventh victim had appeared 10 minutes ago. The 10 minutes Hyeonhye mentioned referred to that exact moment.
Click.
The button was pressed, and the Greatest Machinery began spinning backward.
Greatest Machinery’s spring is rewinding. (Cooldown: 12 hours)
Player Ebola Kramer’s time has been rewound 10 minutes. (Maximum limit: 12 hours)
Tick. Tock. Tick.
For an instant, time stopped.
Tick.
Or rather, it appeared to stop. Because the only thing moving in that moment was the Mad Swordsman.
“What is this?”
Along with Lan’s bewildered voice, the Mad Swordsman began rewinding. It was like watching a videotape in reverse.
CRRRUNCH.
The Mad Swordsman’s shattered armor restored itself. Plop. Plop. Blood splattered across the armor flew backward. Shhhk. After rewinding for some time, the sword—once clotted dark red with blood—became bright red again. It had returned to the exact moment the swordsman had slain seven players. Seeing the swordsman restored to his 2-stack rampage state, Lan muttered as if entranced.
“What is this……”
At any rate, this was manageable now.
Taeyang irritably wiped his lips. Some of the blood he had forced down came up onto the back of his hand. He had taken a wound out of curiosity about how strong a 5-stack rampage swordsman would be. “You’re dead.” Taeyang snapped his fingers.
Stormbringer: Storm Summon
Storm Spirit King Arasil descends upon player Yoon Taeyang’s body. (Duration: 60 seconds)
WHOOOOOOSH!
A powerful whirlwind erupted around Taeyang.
Taeyang cracked his neck.
Crack.
The sound of loosening muscles rang out refreshingly.
“Alright, let’s go!”