Intuition Lv 3

The fierce exchange of blows showed no sign of letting up.

Black energy flashed, and white brilliance met it head-on.

Asea, drawing her ink-black sword—and Ryu Hwi, a longsword gripped in his hand.

Their battle shook the ruined 50th floor to its foundations.

What on earth was happening?

Pokryeol Daedo could not make sense of the scene unfolding before his eyes. The moment he'd tried to use the bug he'd purchased from GA-ES, a black light had fallen from the sky. The gamers struck by that light had warped into grotesque shapes and died, one after another. All that remained was himself, wrapped head to toe in black armor that had crumpled like rags.

A forced, fatal bug outbreak.

And then, out of nowhere, a gamer had appeared.

The face was familiar. He'd seen it a few times before.

Asea—a member of the GA-ES guild. The very person who had sold him the bug.

Judging by the situation, she was almost certainly the one who had launched that bug attack just now. Pokryeol Daedo burned with fury at the thought that Asea had dared to stab him in the back—but right now, he couldn't so much as move.

Before his eyes, Asea and Ryu Hwi had begun to fight.

That much, he could understand.

The problem was the battle itself unfolding right in front of him.

Shrouded in black energy, Asea unleashed a relentless assault. At long range she bombarded him with her bow; the moment the distance closed, she pressed Ryu Hwi with a flurry of strikes from her ink-black blade.

The problem was that her movements were so fast they were nearly impossible to track. Even Pokryeol Daedo, one of World of Phantasm's top-tier gamers, could barely follow them.

Worse, every time Asea attacked, the space around her warped, and incomprehensible phenomena erupted. Space twisted, lightning crashed down, flames surged upward, and the ground contorted into bizarre shapes. Every strange occurrence wracking this ruined 50th floor unfolded with each of Asea's strikes.

Anyone caught in the crossfire wouldn't survive a second.

How could anyone wield power like that?

And Ryu Hwi, standing against it, was just as strange.

Barely—by the narrowest of margins—Ryu Hwi was answering Asea's attacks.

When flames swallowed the surroundings, he carved through their weakest point with a snow-white blade. When lightning fell, he moved in advance as if he already knew exactly where it would strike, evading the blow. When storms raged, when waterfalls erupted from the ground, Ryu Hwi responded to each in turn.

This was not a fight at a level Pokryeol Daedo could comprehend. The confidence he had built up over his entire career as a gamer crumbled to dust.

Damn it, damn it, damn it!

No matter how many times he cursed in his heart, nothing changed.

But one thing was certain: at this rate, Ryu Hwi was going to lose.

He was answering every one of Asea's attacks, but that was all. He defended without ever taking the offensive. It felt less like defense and more like desperately clinging on.

So the real monster is that cursed woman?

The tide was turning. As time passed, Ryu Hwi was driven further and further onto the back foot.

Their escape from this abyss ends today—so Pokryeol Daedo predicted.

This is dangerous.

Just as he'd predicted, Ryu Hwi was steadily being pushed into a perilous position.

Thanks to the debug tool, he could barely contend with the bugs—but that was his limit. The bugs Asea wielded were on an entirely different level from the ones Pokryeol Daedo and the other gamers had used.

Even with the debug tool, Ryu Hwi's intuition told him he couldn't prevent weapon corrosion. So instead of Peace Breaker, he had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drawn a different sword.

There was a limit to how long he could block Asea's endless barrage. He had no idea how many swords he'd already burned through. Every time a weapon was corroded by a bug, he pulled out a fresh one on the spot and met the attack.

He still had reserves, but if this kept up, it would get dangerous.

Retreat was the one option he refused to take.

"Just how many weapons do you have? But judging by how this looks, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you can block the bugs themselves—just not the weapon corrosion."

And above all—

"Struggling is pointless. Just give up!"

He couldn't stand the way she preened, so utterly certain of her victory.

While deflecting Asea's attacks, Ryu Hwi manipulated the UI window floating in his field of view.

YggON had caught on to what Ryu ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hwi was planning.

Ryu Hwi remembered the warning YggON had given him once before.

Confident he could control it?

Ryu Hwi kept hesitating. The moment he raised Intuition to Lv 3, an ominous premonition crept over him—that he might stop being himself.

But YggON's words just now shattered that hesitation.

"Like hell I know?!"

To achieve his goal, he would spare no means. Anything he could use, he would use—all of it.

Even if it was a dose of poison.

Asea, who had been relentlessly driving Ryu Hwi back, felt an inexplicable chill.

Something had changed.

No—it must be my imagination.

What could possibly change in a single instant?

Forcing down her unease, Asea triggered another bug. Just a little more pressure, and she would win.

It didn't take long for her to realize how badly she had misjudged.

Huh?

Until now, she had been blocked at best—while his weapons corroded. But this time, even though the bug made contact, nothing happened at all.

The difference was enormous.

"……?!"

Ryu Hwi's eyes had changed. Every trace of the man who had been struggling against her attacks moments ago was gone. In their place was a depth like that of a sage who had grasped the principles of all creation.

Asea realized that something had gone very, very wrong.

The moment Intuition reached Lv 3, the world changed.

What his eyes and skin, his nose and ears—every sense across his entire body—perceived was different now. He understood why YggON had warned him. If he had to put it into words, Lv 2 had been nothing more than a demo version.

At Lv 3, he felt as though he understood everything in this world—as though he could do anything. He was in danger of getting drunk on the sensation. All he could do was grit his teeth and keep from being swallowed by it.

The Intuition skill surely had a (ygg) level as well. What would happen if he ever reached that point, he couldn't begin to imagine.

"What did you just do? What was that?!"

Even GA-ES's bugs could now be seen through with Intuition. In fact, he had taken Asea's bug attack head-on, and Peace Breaker didn't carry a single scratch.

"The bugs you're all so proud of are 'incomplete' too. There's a clear vulnerability, isn't there?"

"……?!"

Find a bug's weak point in an instant and strike it? That was impossible.

Asea attacked again anyway—but this time too, she was parried with ridiculous ease.

"Give it up. Your attacks don't work on me anymore."

"Don't make me laugh!"

Asea attacked as if wrenching the power out of herself, triggering bug after bug and mutating the very field around them. Waterfalls burst from the ground, razor-sharp winds howled, lightning struck from every direction, and then a vortex of flame swallowed the world.

But not one of those attacks had any effect on Ryu Hwi.

In the end, it was all just flashy window dressing.

Asea darted this way and that, hunting for an opening, but Ryu Hwi barely moved from where he stood, answering each threat with the minimum motion and the optimal response.

"Looks like you can't fully control the bugs either, huh? You can't manipulate the phenomena they cause at will. Guess that's the limit of incomplete bugs, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠after all?"

Even in the middle of it all, he had seen through the fact that Asea couldn't fully command her own bugs.

"Ghk!"

Asea could force bug phenomena to occur, but fine-tuning them was beyond her.

"I get the picture now. Overusing the bugs bleeds into your own account, doesn't it? Just like what happened to that Pokryeol guy earlier."

"Stop talking like you know everything!"

Even Asea couldn't predict which phenomenon would occur. She swung her sword once more, and space warped as pitch-black flames erupted.

"Hah!"

Ryu Hwi swept the flames aside with a single stroke of his sword, suppressing them with ease. The fire vanished at once—but Asea was nowhere to be seen.

Even so, Ryu Hwi naturally sensed where she was and looked up.

Above me!

The instant he swung his sword, Asea leapt high into the air, aiming her bow down at him. She had slipped into his blind spot in a heartbeat, clearly intending a surprise attack—but ambushes didn't work on Ryu Hwi.

The moment their eyes met, Asea clicked her tongue and drew the bowstring.

In World of Phantasm, bows were strictly a supplementary weapon; no one used one as their main arm. But the moment Asea equipped it, the story changed.

The black-tinged bow traced an arc from the heavens down to the earth. But Ryu Hwi, who had already read the attack through Intuition, evaded it with nothing more than a light step backward.

"Got you!"

Asea had predicted from the very start that Ryu Hwi would dodge this attack too. That was why, the instant she activated Lightning Arrow, she had calculated where he would retreat to—and thrown a dagger. Hidden beneath the black light that flooded his vision, the dagger flew straight for Ryu Hwi.

This time, for sure, he can't block it—Asea was certain.

"Fall—"

Without even glancing at it, Ryu Hwi swung his sword and knocked the dagger aside.

"……!"

Even as Asea analyzed his Intuition-driven movements, his intuition was already looking one move past hers.

"Let me give you some advice."

Ryu Hwi aimed Peace Breaker's muzzle at the sky.

"When you get the chance to grind your enemy into the dirt, you grind them into the dirt thoroughly. Because if you don't—"

The instant he pulled the trigger—

"—the 'enemy' you once crushed will come back and crush you."

A flash of light tore through Asea.

"GYAAAAAH!!"

A scream of agony rang out. Swept up in Peace Breaker's bombardment, Asea was wracked by pain as if her lower body had been blasted away.

Watching her thrash on the ground in torment, Ryu Hwi clicked his tongue.

"Did it drift a little?"

He'd meant to finish it in one blow, but the unstable environment of the 50th floor had thrown off his aim. Proof that even Intuition Lv 3 wasn't perfect.

"Huh?"

Ryu Hwi's eyes went wide with surprise.

Asea, gritting her teeth, rose to her feet. She should have been convulsing from pain that felt like her lower half had been blown off—yet she was enduring it with astonishing willpower.

"You can actually stand? Impressive."

At some point, a single dagger had found its way into Asea's hand. It felt different from every dagger he'd seen so far—it radiated a far more sinister light.

"Ryu…… Hwi……."

Asea spoke through a strained voice.

"No matter what it takes, I will stop you here."

"No."