SSR Weapon (3)

Unbelievable.

It made no sense at all.

"Why...?"

Hwanhwan Yoyo, leader of the Soul Pursuing Squad, squeezed his eyes shut against the carnage that surrounded him.

How had it come to this?

He was a man who had reached the Transcendent realm through illusion arts, and he had always prided himself on never being startled by anything the world could throw at him.

"How in the world..."

Now nearing his sixtieth year, with white hair swept up into a topknot, his voice trembled like a thin reed in the wind.

It is human nature to feel terror when confronted with a sight the mind simply cannot process.

"Gulp."

It had all begun simply enough. All they needed to do was run down one of the last stragglers of the Namgung Clan, ruined by internal strife, and retrieve the key to the hidden vault. They didn't even need him personally — a single peak martial artist from the cult's orthodox branch would have sufficed.

But the matter was delicate, and it demanded a swift resolution, so he had unleashed his entire unit and spread the Heavenly Net far and wide. The whelp had hidden himself so thoroughly that not even the tip of his nose had shown for months, and the irritation of it had been gnawing at him. Worse still, word had even ceased coming from the squad captain who had claimed to have found the boy — and by then his annoyance had reached its absolute peak.

Did I spoil them, letting the squads manage themselves all these years? High time I hammered some discipline back into them.

And then, at last, they had found him. The brat of the Namgung Clan.

From the traces left around the site, his subordinates had clearly already been cut down. Astonishing. This from a green pup who looked for all the world like a mere first-rate fighter.

But he was an old tiger of the Jianghu, one who had roamed its bloody roads for decades.

He had drawn his blade before surprise could even register on his face.

The Jianghu crawled with eccentrics and freaks of nature, with things that defied all reason. Anyone who stopped to marvel at each one would lose his head long before he finished being amazed.

Only a wisp of internal energy had pulsed from the boy — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet Hwanhwan Yoyo had not let his guard slip. His Phantom Cloud Demonic Art unfurled: a vicious illusion that sealed its victim in a shifting mist and subjected them to endless assaults from the very beings they most dreaded in this world.

Broken by despair, drained of every last drop of internal energy, his prey would die a miserable death. Such was his unique art!

And indeed, the boy had fallen into the illusion — thrashing and flailing his arms like a startled deer before a forest fire.

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was in that very moment, as the brat's scream tore the air, that the Karmic Hellscape unfolded.

"Say, have you heard that rumor going around?"

"Ah, the Invisible Divine Sword?"

"Who in this day and age hasn't? The Invisible Divine Sword — they say he'll cut you down for nothing more than meeting his eyes."

"Haha. True enough. But here's what I heard, friend. They say the Invisible Divine Sword is of Namgung blood."

"The talk is that a sword immortal himself descended from the heavens to punish the Demon Cult scum, and came to dwell in the last direct descendant of the Namgung line."

"Well, thank the heavens either way. Thanks to him, the Demon Cult bastards pulled back to regroup, didn't they?"

"They say heroes rise in times of chaos — and he's the very image of it."

The lively tavern had gone quiet before anyone noticed, every ear bent toward the two warriors' conversation. Realizing this, the warriors who had been chatting in a corner cleared their throats and raised their voices, deliberately carrying the discussion for all to hear.

"Though... there are those who whisper otherwise. That the Invisible Divine Sword was once nothing more than an ordinary martial artist, and that in his madness for revenge he offered human sacrifices to seize the power of an immortal. I ask you — is leaping from first-rate straight to the realm of the Heart Sword even possible?!"

"Eep!"

"Heheh. To speak so boldly of him!"

"Oh dear."

At the words human sacrifice, a brief stir rippled through the once-quiet tavern. There was no denying that everyone present took a keen interest in the Invisible Divine Sword. The speaking warrior, for his part, had chosen his inflammatory words quite deliberately.

"Mmm... it's true enough that when he cuts down the demon kind, his face carries something eerie — a chill that crawls up your spine."

"You were there too, weren't you? The day the Heavenly Demon Sword came into the world."

"Mmm. That day, I swear — I thought a demon, no, an Asura himself had descended."

Reliving the memory, the warrior who had been speaking shivered faintly.

It was the day the Invisible Divine Sword's name thundered across all of the Central Plains — the day that came to be called the Demon-Slaying Blood Battle.

The Invisible Divine Sword had carried the Heavenly Demon Sword to the Murim Alliance and proclaimed it to the world.

-The Heavenly Demon Sword you seek is in my hands! Come and take it, if you dare. I will be waiting in Hubei, where the Wudang Sect once stood, in fifteen days!

It was a day on which thirty percent of the Demon Cult's entire invasion force had gathered.

For reasons unknown, the Murim Alliance itself had thrown its weight behind the campaign, trumpeting the sword immortal's absurd declaration far and wide.

And then the day arrived.

It was said that fewer than a hundred of the Demon Cult's people returned alive.

The rumor spread like wildfire. To Hubei, where Mount Wudang stood, that day gathered not only the Demon Cult's faithful.

Wandering swordsmen came to gawk, drawn by the rumors; the orthodox sects sent no small number of their own; even the imperial authorities dispatched men.

A tension on the verge of detonation wrapped around Mount Wudang like a living thing. War could have broken out on the spot and no one would have questioned it.

And yet.

-This is my personal affair, bound up in the Heavenly Demon Sword! Let no other meddle! And you, demon kind — if you lay a hand on anyone else, you will never see the Heavenly Demon Sword again, not for all eternity!

At first, the Demon Cultists had not bothered to hide their scorn. That lasted but a moment. Then he began to move — and every face turned deathly pale.

Those who had witnessed the gruesome scene that day never dared so much as raise their voices against the Invisible Divine Sword again.

It was a divine majesty so alien, so wrong, that even the onlookers felt their sanity slip. The sight of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hundreds of demon cultivators being severed in a single stroke produced something like an optical illusion.

Has something gone wrong with my eyes? Why does it look as though my own vision has been split in half?

Presently, a radius of twenty jang around the Invisible Divine Sword split apart from top to bottom and from end to end, unleashing a howling storm of blade wind.

What happened that day remains a burning topic, retold and argued over to this very hour.

"For whatever reason, he has gone into seclusion these days, I hear."

"Aye. If only he had pressed on a little longer, we could have driven the Demon Cult from the Central Plains altogether. A shame. A real shame."

"I heard it was on account of his killing karma."

"The disciples who gathered at Mount Hubei that day were the very vermin who trampled the Central Plains and committed every atrocity under the sun! Why, in heaven's name, should the Invisible Divine Sword be the one to suffer for it in his heart?!"

"That... who can say? What are we lowly grubs to presume the depths of that man's intentions?"

No one in the world would dare demand an answer from the Invisible Divine Sword, who had withdrawn into seclusion.

And Namgung Jin —

Flash-

Flash-

Flash-

Namgung Jin was pulling Void Treading Steps and Body-Protecting Qi from the gacha, one shimmering item after another.

Virdel closed the community board and sank into thought. The posts she had just read were the talk of the town — the ones everyone had been buzzing about lately.

"..."

Something about them set her teeth on edge in the strangest way.

Truthfully, she had no great personal stake in the matter, but if the posts were the sort to stir up discord within the community, she would have to step in and moderate them herself — so it was only natural that she dwelt on them.

Of late, winds of change had been sweeping through the Interdimensional Integrated Community, and its user base was ballooning at a staggering rate.

Had all those new users behaved themselves, she would have had no reason to spare them a second thought. Reality, however, was not so kind. Alongside the surging user count, the number of abnormal users had climbed sharply as well, keeping her busier than ever these days. She'd still had time to train her swordsmanship, mind you, what with the new sub-admin "MagicIsJustSupport" apparently working hard.

She closed her eyes and stilled her breath.

Whshh— haaa...

The sound of the cascading waterfall faded away. The murmuring of the stream dissipated. The chirring of grasshoppers, even the whisper of wind through the blades of grass — all of it melted into silence, and she sank gradually into the deep, boundless realm of Nothingness within.

Every sense in her body turned inward, converging into the flesh alone, and she held herself in the liminal space between the conscious and the unconscious mind.

Twitch-

Deep beside her heart, she felt something small as a grain of millet give a sudden flinch. Something distinctly different from the suit's power core.

A silver flame, perhaps?

Whenever she entered her mindscape, that silvery fire was always waiting there.

What is it, exactly?

She didn't know.

But neither could she afford to ignore it.

Not long ago — that day. When she had felt herself cross some small, invisible threshold while training the Dimensional Slash, she had unleashed a slash unlike any before it.

She had been aware that something had been cut apart and annihilated — but what that something was, she had no idea.

All she could do was rack her brains over the strange phenomena that had plagued her ever since.

Particularly since acquiring this flame, that uncanny sensation had begun to widen, bit by bit, like ripples spreading across still water.

How to put it — the world itself, the very existence called dimension, had come to feel so vivid and sharp it was almost as if she could reach out and touch it with her own hands?

But agonizing over it alone would yield no answers. In the end, it seemed she would have to ask the Administrator.

She wondered if it was presumptuous of her to reach out first... but she bit her lip and steeled herself.

The reply had come back instantly, and color rushed back into her pale face.

She explained, as thoroughly and earnestly as she could, the strange phenomena she had been experiencing.

Fortunately, he seemed genuinely interested.