Master's End
He bowed his head, trembling as he sobbed.
And then—
Shhhk!
He drew a dagger from his robes and thrust it straight at me.
A sudden ambush. Triumph gleaming in his eyes.
Hah.
I let out a quiet sigh to myself.
How could anyone be this perfectly, utterly predictable?
Slash!
Thud.
Both of his arms were severed clean off and went tumbling across the floor.
"Aaaagh…! M-my arms…!"
Master screamed as he stared at his severed limbs, his ambush having failed spectacularly. But even that agony seemed secondary to his will to live. With a desperate look, he turned to me.
"I—I still have so much I haven't told you! If you keep me alive, I'll be far more useful—!"
Thud.
Roll…
Master never finished the sentence. His severed head went bouncing across the floor alongside his arms.
…Truly vile to the very end. So vile I no longer wanted to waste another word on him. Just hearing his voice made my ears feel like they were rotting.
And the moment Master's life was fully extinguished—
You have slain Player 'Master'.
You have gained 100 points.
Karma has increased by 60.
You have recovered a 'Broken Fragment of the Golden Rule (127h)'.
Experience has increased dramatically.
You have acquired 120 SP.
Two Stars scatter across the entire continent.
All of Master's equipment of Myth grade or lower has evaporated.
Unique-grade materials have been randomly registered in the 'Golden Rule Shop'.
The name 'Master' has been deleted from the Hall of Fame.
Achievement unlocked: 'High Ranker Slayer'.
Ruins City 'Rundela' has no designated successor.
You have met the succession conditions for Ruins City 'Rundela'.
He gave generously, then vanished.
Ruins City Rundela. The city that had been the greatest pillar of Master's power.
He didn't even bother appointing a proper successor.
That alone told me just how greedy the man had been. He'd wanted everything for himself, so he never named an heir. And thanks to that, Rundela had fallen right into my hands.
All that remained was to go to the city myself and declare that I was its new master.
—Ugh! Disgusting! This bastard's blood is filthy!
Winter spoke up. She'd kept her mouth shut this whole time, but Master's blood had finally pried it open.
—Be careful! The Heaven Destroyer is a troublesome one.
She even gave me a warning. For reasons I couldn't place, Winter seemed to know about the Heaven Destroyer.
I turned my head.
"…The Heaven Destroyer has spoken. He says you're a dangerous one."
There stood a black-stained Paladin. The Insect Mage and the tribal warrior were nowhere to be seen. While I'd been dealing with Master, this one had consumed them both. More precisely, the Black Spot he had created had done the devouring.
That Black Spot—the symbol of the Balrog Cult—possessed the trait of draining life itself.
"Interesting."
I shrugged. I'd never even heard the name Heaven Destroyer before. But the longer time went on, the more things I didn't know kept surfacing, one after another. Just as Master had said, it felt like things that had been frozen in place were starting to move again.
Perhaps everything I knew about Pangenia was nothing more than a shallow scratch on the surface. That thought struck me hard.
It's not over.
I'd thought I'd seen the end. I'd thought there was nowhere higher left to climb.
This is just the beginning.
It turned out this was only the start.
Beginning.
What a fine ring that word had.
And MintChocoIsDelicious wasn't just some ordinary player either. What the hell was that one? Watching me from somewhere?
No. No—he still didn't truly know me. If he did, he never would have set a board like this from behind the scenes. No wonder that nickname had rubbed me the wrong way from the start.
I'll find you first.
A game of tag.
And for the record—I'm it.
The 'Hall of Fame' rankings have changed.
The same message appeared before countless players at once. And the players who saw it lost their minds.
Player Talk was no different. Master's name vanishing out of nowhere made the chaos inevitable. No matter how far his reputation had fallen, he was still a two-Star Transcendent—and a man who clung to his own life with everything he had.
An empty city. A city without a master had always been one of the primary causes of war. Even if a successor existed, without Master himself it meant nothing. Countless factions would inevitably swarm to claim Rundela for themselves.
…
The posts never stopped coming.
"…This is seriously bad."
Staring at it all, one of the 6 Heroes—Obsidian—muttered under her breath with a grave expression. And she wasn't the only one.
The endlessly buzzing phone displayed messages just like those.
Damn it.
Since when did Gracia actually show up to meetings? Had Master's death hit him hard enough to care? If so, there was no way she could skip this one.
Nobody's looking for me.
But among them, not a single person was looking for Obsidian. That was only natural—she'd been riding Master's coattails this whole time. Now her situation was no different from a kite with a severed string. And nobody liked a bat like Obsidian to begin with.
Biting her lip, Obsidian typed on her phone.
…What an irritating bitch.
Ban-hee always treated her like this. Acting like she was some kind of queen, checking other women just because they were the same gender.
Obsidian wiped the cold sweat from her brow and finally managed to reclaim her smile.
Master had been the figurehead. Gracia had little interest in playing hero. Drakestar was a flamboyant attention-seeker, and Ban-hee was the type who loved playing queen in her own territory. Lucifer, on the other hand, was the invisible hand supporting the Heroes from behind the scenes—the real leader. If he had given permission, that meant she was allowed to attend.
Good. I'm safe.
The Heroes were dying one by one. She could be next. In times like these, sticking together tightly was the only way to survive.
Obsidian clenched her fist hard.
⊳ Party member 'Master' has been killed by '???' of another party.
⊳ Party score decreased by 100 points.
Laktusha scowled.
Master. The very man who had dragged them into the Rift Tower was dead. Killed by whom? He'd been decent enough in a fight, at least.
Doesn't really matter to me.
Still, those hundred points flying away was a shame. If he'd known this would happen, he should have left the bastard behind. But points could always be earned back.
That was when it happened.
Whoooooosh!
Suddenly, a chill swept through the air, and snow began falling from the sky. Over this parched, barren earth—a landscape that had nothing whatsoever to do with snow.
A blizzard?
Just like winter itself.
Apostle of the Heaven Destroyer.
The Black Paladin could not comprehend the situation before him.
I absorbed every single stack. How?
An infinite stacking buff through the Black Spot. He could drain the life force of anyone blessed by the Black Spot. And so, the moment that man had let his guard down, he had completely absorbed the power of both the Insect Mage and the tribal warrior.
The body has reached its limit.
As one of the greatest Apostles, he had pushed his physical form to its absolute limit to raise his stats—stats that would normally require transcending several more Stars to obtain. As proof, the Eye of Dreadful Omen that man had been using had completely vanished.
So how?
How was he blocking every attack?
And it wasn't mere blocking. He was deflecting, sticking, seizing control of the space itself.
This swordsmanship… no. This is no ordinary swordsmanship.
As an Apostle of the Heaven Destroyer, he had mastered every martial art and inherited the power of a cult that stood as their natural opposite. He was, above all, a master of martial techniques. He had been confident he knew every form of combat that existed in the world.
And yet, even to his eyes, the swordsmanship used by that unidentified man was anything but ordinary.
This is less swordsmanship and more…
Whoosh!
CRAAASH!
He swung his hammer down with black lightning crackling around it. But it didn't connect. More than ten exchanges had already taken place, and not a single blow had landed.
"There's something dwelling within the swordsmanship itself. You… what exactly are you?"
This had gone beyond the mere stages of technique. This swordsmanship could not simply be dismissed as "swordsmanship." How could seizing space, twisting and deflecting, reflecting attacks—how could any of that be ordinary swordplay?
A certain grade was embedded in the technique itself. More precisely, an existence of immeasurable grade had become the swordsmanship itself. Naturally, it could not be imitated—a sword art that only one person in this world could wield.
And what was more terrifying—
"This isn't everything, is it? The third stage isn't the end. What the hell comes after this?"
He still hadn't shown it all. Everything so far was merely preparation for the final stage. There was a next level he either hadn't revealed—or couldn't yet reveal.
As one of the Heaven Destroyer's most powerful Apostles, and having mastered every martial art in existence, the Black Paladin was certain of it.
"…You're an interesting one, after all."
The man smirked—as if having his swordsmanship read was a first for him. But thanks to that, it was now clear.
A pure, supreme swordsmanship. Yes—it only looks at raw base stats. Buffs, equipment, any added stats—none of it even registers to this sword art.
Even with his stats elevated by stacked buffs, he kept being blocked.