Faded Glory
The steel beams bursting out from every corner of Rider-On wrapped Linpel's entire body like a cocoon.
The world decomposed into strings of zeros and ones, then reassembled itself into a new form in the blink of an eye.
A nameless sense of dread seeping from within it grew steadily larger.
It seemed the world of Rider-On was remaking 'Linpel Darius' into something new entirely.
The cocoon of steel stained crimson like blood, incinerating whatever lay inside.
Along with it, the red spread across the world like paint, creating a new landscape.
What came into view was the site of a castle that must once have been resplendent.
Red light shimmered over the ruined grounds, glory lost and left to decay.
At the center of the completed 'Field' stood a being seized by the Abyss.
The red armor enveloping him from head to toe writhed like a living creature, and flames blooming across his body blazed on without ever dying down.
When he extended a hand, the crimson light gathered to form a spear.
The color was different, but its shape bore a striking resemblance to the Starlight Spear that Linpel Darius had once treasured.
"YggON, what the hell is happening right now?"
"What?"
"What are you talking about? So you're saying Linpel turned into a labyrinth monster?"
A human had transformed into a Game Labyrinth monster?
Was such a thing even possible?
"What—"
The words never made it to the end. The instant his Intuition flared, Ryu Hwi pulled the bike's throttle.
The moment the bike lurched forward, the spot where he'd been standing a heartbeat ago was torn through by a 'road' stained red, slashing across the sky.
"A Rider-On Air Road?!"
"He built himself an SSR system? But without a bike... guh?!"
The steel beams spilling from the road clumped together and reshaped themselves into a 'horse' form, as if armored for war.
Linpel mounted the beast and lightly re-gripped his spear.
"Ryu Hwi."
Linpel — no, the thing that had been Linpel — called his name with perfect clarity, in a voice nothing like the slurred mumbling of moments before.
"You ruined my life."
Linpel's voice resonated.
The sound alone sent jolts of static crackling through the air.
"Every single day was hell."
The alarm bells of his Intuition were ringing deafeningly.
Under normal circumstances, Ryu Hwi would have sneered at him for being pathetic — but right now, there was no room for that.
"Only now that this moment has arrived do I finally understand. Everything was merely a process leading to this."
Blue flames flickered in the eyes of the horse Linpel rode.
"Come, Ryu Hwi. Let us settle this!"
"Settle this?"
Ryu Hwi glared at Linpel and snorted.
"Why should I play along with you?"
"Agree to the duel, and I will liberate this world."
"And why on earth would I believe that? What guarantee do I have that you'll actually free Rider-On if I agree? Hm?"
Just then, a stream of data was transmitted from Linpel Darius.
The data contained detailed information on exactly how Linpel had eroded and destroyed Rider-On.
Rider-On materialized by overlaying a Game Labyrinth onto the Human Realm on the fly.
Unlike a full Yggdrasil Game Labyrinth, it was not a 'complete form', which left gaps that could be exploited.
That was the backdoor into Rider-On that S.E.N had prepared in advance — its fatal weakness.
"You're deliberately sending me this data. Do you want to face me that badly?"
Ryu Hwi glared at Linpel, who was no longer human.
"Is this your idea of revenge? That I ruined your life, something like that?"
"No."
Linpel shook his head.
"There was a time I cursed you. But this is different. Now, I simply want to break you."
The fighting spirit radiating from his voice was worlds apart from the Linpel of old.
The odds were high that it was a trap — but no other solution presented itself.
"Fine. This time I'll end this for good. Come at me."
The moment he accepted the duel, Linpel flashed a grin.
Down the crimson road spread across the sky, the horse carrying Linpel galloped.
Ryu Hwi answered in kind, unfurling his own Air Road.
The translucent road drawn across the void and the crimson road crossed one another again and again, tracing a figure eight through the air.
"You, who stripped me of my faded glory — I will strike you down."
"What the hell is with all this garbage talk?!"
Above the two crossing roads, Ryu Hwi and Linpel collided.
Throttling hard, Ryu Hwi kept Linpel at bay with the Shuffle Gun's firing mode.
Deflecting every bullet raining down on him, Linpel pressed in close on his tail.
"He's parrying bullets with his spear?"
The Trucardia Virus.
An item the King had designated as a Taboo.
"Why is that coming up now? Are you telling me he's been snorting digital narcotics? Guh—?!"
Linpel, riding right on his heels, swung his spear, and Ryu Hwi blocked it with the Shuffle Gun's gauntlet.
Even calling on the Heavenly Demon Divine Art up to Lv4, his arm went numb.
Barely fending off the attack, he fired the Aero booster and pushed the bike's speed higher.
New roads kept materializing in the empty sky, paving the way for the bike to run.
Ryu Hwi glanced back at Linpel chasing him down the crimson road.
That figure could hardly be called human anymore.
He looked like Pokryeol Daedo, who had gone berserk from the bug back on Floor 50.
No — he was far, far more ominous than that.
"What's that supposed to..."
Linpel's spear burst into crimson flame.
A light brighter than a meteor burning up against the atmosphere!
Meteor Strike — the core technique of Meteor Fang, Linpel's signature skill back in his World of Phantasm days.
But a crimson blaze poured toward him, burning with a light beyond any comparison to back then.
Ryu Hwi slammed the brakes and wrenched the bike sideways by sheer force.
Evading the Meteor Strike by a hair's breadth, he tapped the cards displayed like holograms on the Shuffle Gun's gauntlet.
[Time Trickster], [Beyond the Drainpipe]
Time Trickster was a gambling-type movement skill.
The instant it activated, it teleported the user to one of their own past coordinates, anywhere from one to six seconds ago.
Through Time Trickster's effect, Ryu Hwi leapt to the position he had occupied three seconds earlier.
The moment Ryu Hwi vanished before his eyes, Linpel hauled back on the reins.
But weighed down by momentum, he couldn't stop in time — and his horse stamped down on the very 'point' where Ryu Hwi had been standing.
Beyond the Drainpipe
A colossal drainpipe erupted from nowhere and swallowed Linpel and his horse whole.
This skill forcibly teleported whoever stepped on the trap.
Because a 'drainpipe' materialized at the destination, the location it would appear was always predictable.
The pipe had deposited him roughly a hundred meters away.
Ryu Hwi tapped another card.
Sniper Rifle
The instant Linpel's figure emerged from the drainpipe, the Shuffle Gun roared.
A trick play built from the Shuffle Gun's functions — the bullet fired from Ryu Hwi's weapon punched straight through Linpel's heart.
"Clever little tricks."
Despite having his heart pierced clean through, Linpel was fine.
No — the gaping hole had filled in within moments, restoring him to pristine condition.
"Insane!"
Ryu Hwi spat out a curse.
It was hard enough just grasping what state Linpel was even in.
"Hecate. What did you do to Linpel?"
⟪The way you say that, it sounds like I did something terrible. I told you clearly, didn't I? I did nothing at all.⟫
"I don't have time for your word games!"
Once more, the crimson road Linpel had forged came hunting after Ryu Hwi. Every time that red road unfurled, his Intuition screamed at him.
One thing was certain — fighting on that crimson road would be dangerous.
In all likelihood, that red path amplified the power of Linpel's 'Field' even further.
Ryu Hwi immediately conjured an Air Road and fled the crimson path.
Linpel's horse was faster than Ryu Hwi's bike.
Only by burning the Aero booster could he barely keep ahead.
Blocking Linpel's relentless onslaught by the skin of his teeth, Ryu Hwi tore down the road in the sky.
⟪What do you think the Beings of the Labyrinth are?⟫
He had no room in him to answer Hecate's question.
An unending storm of crimson meteors swept the sky in every direction.
If not for the bike, even fleeing would have been impossible.
Intuition Lv3 howled that each and every one of those strikes was 'lethal'.
This wouldn't end with mere pain.
Something far more fatal was coming — he could feel it in his bones.
⟪The Beings of the Labyrinth are those who once lived in Yggdrasil's Game Labyrinths, until some trigger brought them out into the Human Realm — what you all call 'reality'.⟫
Fire Sword
The Shuffle Gun transformed into a blade wreathed in flame.
Bike and horse racing through the void.
A road slicing through empty air like a fleeing shadow, and the crimson path hunting close behind.
There was no escaping completely — and every time the road and the crimson path crossed, Ryu Hwi's sword clashed against Linpel's spear.
'Ghh...'
He could feel the crimson road siphoning away his strength.
Ryu Hwi forcibly knocked Linpel's spear aside and yanked the throttle again.
⟪And then someone thought — 'What if we could push the other way, and put the beings of the Human Realm into the labyrinth?'⟫
A chill shot down Ryu Hwi's spine.
⟪At first, they were the experiments you'd call 'Conversion'. But midway through, the experiments changed. It became about whether a human could be remade into '▆▆▆▆▆' entirely...⟫
"What? What are you saying?!"
He couldn't properly parse Hecate's words.
⟪And at last, they discovered a Yggdrasil Item that mutates the very existence of a human being.⟫
Ryu Hwi realized exactly what that Yggdrasil Item was.
The Taboo Item designated by the King!
"The Trucardia Virus chip!"
⟪Ahaha. Impressive as always. You read me like a book.⟫
Hecate laughed, sounding genuinely impressed.
⟪You foolish humans think of the Trucardia Virus chip as nothing more than a 'digital narcotic'. But its true nature is a device that slowly, from the inside out, converts a human into '▆▆▆▆▆'.⟫
"I'm telling you, I still can't hear half of what you're saying!"
There was a reason it had been designated a Taboo Item.
The true nature of the Trucardia Virus was a horror that, left unchecked, could shatter human society itself.
"Damn it!"
Rider Skill
↳ Sonic Boom
⟫ Generates an instantaneous shockwave, striking everything in the surrounding area.
He activated the rider skill Sonic Boom.
The shockwave radiating out from the bike's center blasted Linpel back, if only for a moment.
But Linpel paid the shock no mind whatsoever and immediately launched a counterattack.
A meteor storm dyeing the world red came crashing down in relentless waves.
In answer, he activated the power of his cards.
Accelerating the bike to its limit, he deflected the crimson impacts one by one as they came in endless succession.
⟪Linpel Darius was already steeped to the marrow in digital narcotics refined from the Trucardia Virus. And now, at last, he has crossed the line. He is no longer human.⟫
In that instant, Linpel vaulted off his horse's back and closed the distance to Ryu Hwi in a single flash.
Even with Swiftness active, the speed was nearly impossible to track.
⟪A being that fell from humanity into the depths of the great ▆▆▆▆▆...⟫
"Die, Ryu Hwi."
The eyes gleaming through the gaps of the crimson helm burned darker than darkness itself.