Sky-Shattering Step

CRASH! CLANG! CLANG!

My body slammed into the ground, and I kept moving all the same — slashing with my daggers, rolling, driving myself forward again and again.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

And every single time, the handsome man erased my attacks with nothing more than a simple shift of motion.

"What happened to all that fire from a moment ago?"

"Ghh...!"

All I could do was grit my teeth and strike back. Not yet. My body moved far better than before, but I was still one step short. One more step — if I could only find what that one step was, I could pass this trial.

Basic Footwork. Rupture.

Attacks built entirely on fundamentals. I wasn't setting foot in any higher footwork — only the basics. Shadow Footwork would be dispelled the moment I used it. Illusion Footwork didn't work on him, and Scout Footwork couldn't attack at all. As for the Hundred-Break footwork, I had erased it long ago.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

But that didn't mean my attacks were landing. Rupture strikes lost their effect against his fan, and ambushes woven from Shadow never connected either.

Did he grow eyes in the back of his head? Anything less failed to explain it. I attacked thoroughly from his blind angles, yet he parried every single one as though blind spots simply didn't exist for him.

I can't use Limit Break in a trial like this. For pushing past your limits, the price was far too steep — a double-edged sword, and the very last blade I needed right now. This trial only meant something if I broke through on my own strength. Passing by way of a shortcut would be meaningless.

Basic Footwork. Speed.

I sprang into the air on the step and swung my daggers as I rose.

CLANG!

"Your attacks are all far too identical, wouldn't you say?"

Shuffling my patterns through basic footwork had made my offense monotonous. My means of attack were limited: daggers, and Rupture strikes at range. That was the maximum of what I could do right now.

"Seems like you're running low on mana."

What I lacked. The endless clashes had made it certain. My body, I was managing to put to use — but what this place demanded was the growth of my mana. Body and mana existed in balance, each holding the other in equilibrium.

When mana grows, the body grows with it.

I stopped attacking and opened my inventory. A single red stone sat nestled inside — one of the elixirs I'd obtained while running gates.

Consuming it as an elixir raised mana by nearly thirty on its own and even birthed a new stat called Blood Energy. But if you failed to absorb it completely, you became a blood ghoul.

Honestly, I never even had the guts to try... A blood ghoul was a lesser monster, a wretched servant of the vampires. I'd rather have failed the stone outright than become one of those. But now, for the first time, I felt certain I could absorb it completely.

I took out the Blood Stone without hesitation and swallowed it.

Thump.

The moment it went down, my blood surged violently to life. I could feel its flow, feel the stone's energy riding my bloodstream, spreading out toward every corner of my body.

"What...?!"

Those words were the last thing I knew before I fell into the mental space.

"What in the world is going on here..."

I had clearly swallowed the Blood Stone inside the relic's trial and been dragged straight into this world. That much was accurate. The problem was why I was here at all.

Eating the Blood Stone was supposed to trigger a Trial of the Mind? Says who? I'd never heard of such a thing. I ate an elixir to clear a trial, and now I had to challenge a brand-new one.

"So what exactly is this trial?"

The moment the words left my mouth, a system message rose before my eyes.

Along with the message, the blood before my eyes clumped together and began shaping itself into the form of a man.

At the very least, a Count-rank vampire. Crafting a Blood Stone required the standing of a Count or higher. Barons and viscounts couldn't make one.

The silver lining is that it's a Trial of the Mind, I suppose. Mental trials unfolded inside a person's own head. And if the master of this mindscape was me, then I could wield the full power of my prime — the strength I'd held before my regression.

Even if a Vampire Lord himself shows up, it shouldn't be a problem. When I flexed my mana just slightly, it moved more smoothly than it ever had before my regression. Is the body influencing it? If so, all the better for me.

I waited a little longer, and the blood at last took on a complete human shape.

"You dare swallow the Blood Stone of I, Count Mont Blanc—"

THWACK!

First strike wins! The trial I still had to face outside was waiting for me. There wasn't a second to waste in a place like this.

"You insolent wretch!"

The Count, reeling from the opening blow, conjured spears of blood and hurled them at me. But so long as I stood within the mental world, the notion of losing to some vampire was laughable. I evaded every last blood spear with only the barest movements.

"Sorry, but I'll be finishing this quickly."

So saying, I converted my mana into the attribute of Demon-Slaying. Not the clumsy imitation I'd been rehearsing — the genuine article.

PAANG!

The instant my mana took on the Demon-Slaying attribute, the blood mist that had thickened the air all around began to disperse.

"Wh-why?!"

Panic bled through the Count's voice as he watched the mist dissolve. The blood mist was a kind of domain. Within it, a vampire wielded power worthy of being called an absolute sovereign. That was precisely why most hunters struck before the mist was ever unleashed.

"You — you carry divine power, do you?!"

But every power has its weakness. For the vampire, that weakness is divine power. And my Demon-Slaying force was attuned not so much to divine power as to demonic energy — and Blood Energy was merely a subordinate offshoot of demonic energy.

"It's not divine power, but it'll do."

With that, I sheathed my fist in Demon-Slaying and swung.

The moment my fist extended, every trace of the blood mist vanished — and so did the Count's entire upper body.

"So I didn't even need the footwork."

Losing my test subject stung a little, but this worked out fine in its own way. The faster I cleared the trial, the faster I could return to the real one.

With the messages, agony flooded my body. My mana had crossed 150, and the third awakening had begun. Perhaps because I was still inside the mental world, the pain itself felt no ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worse than my second awakening had. That didn't make it light.

"Ugh."

I bore down on the groan and endured. I couldn't tell how much time had passed before the awakening messages finally appeared.

"Finally."

The special ability I'd been waiting for. I'd obtained it at the very first awakening before my regression, which was probably why it felt so slow in coming this time.

But with this, my Demon-Slaying and Shadow become that much more complete. I used other attributes as well, but those two were what I relied on now. And even that much was more than powerful enough.

"Now then, back I go."

I left the mental world behind and returned to the relic's trial.

"So ye've finally returned, have ye?"

So spoke the handsome man the moment I gathered my senses. Disbelief ran beneath his words — understandable enough, considering the man he'd been testing had just wandered off into another trial entirely.

"Oh-ho? The kernel inside ye has finally taken proper shape."

The mental space that filled me. And my mana. Both of them had just grown stronger through the trial of blood.

"Somehow... I feel like it might actually work."

A footwork I had never once used. A footwork conceived only this very moment. And yet it felt like it would work.

No test needed. All I had to do was move my legs. I had never been this certain of anything — certain that all it would take was the step itself.

THOOM!

I moved my leg — and the surrounding air shuddered. Feeling that tremor, the handsome man broke into a wide grin and snapped his fan open at full spread.

"Well, now, would ye look at that!"

A voice wild with excitement. Nothing like the teasing, mocking drawl he'd been sporting moments ago. This voice was rapture. It was joy. It was anticipation — and it was certainty.

"Come, then! Try leapin' clean over me!"

Taoist power began gathering around him as he spoke. White threads of force overlapped upon themselves, weaving upward into a colossal pillar.

"Daoist art — Wind of the Heavens."

The power dwelling in that pillar was Taoist force, and it was wind.

VWOOOM!

The wind gathered and compressed, birthing one enormous current — and at its very center, there I stood.

"Now this is fun."

The man who had never once taken the initiative was taking it for the first time. All because I had moved.

If he's expecting that much, then I owe him a proper show.

I gathered my mana. Set the gathered mana into circulation. It began to swell through my legs as though inflating, expanding wider and wider — and rather than stemming it, I goaded it on.

Now.

The instant the swell reached its peak, I took the step.

Nameless Footwork. First Step — Heaven-Breaking,

KRAKOOM! KRAKOOM! KRAKOOM!

The moment my foot fell, the heavens around me began to splinter apart amid a colossal roar.

"Haha! Hahahaha!"

The man laughed himself hoarse at the sight. And I felt a faint prickle of unease. Heaven-Breaking — the first step of the new footwork I had conceived. I could only execute that single step for now, but it was a footwork I intended to extend, one step at a time, from here on out.

Naming it now would be jumping the gun. A footwork's name could wait. For the moment, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was simply riding high on a result this satisfying.

"Seeing it for real, the sheer pressure is no joke."

It was a phenomenon I had created myself — but what had lived only inside my head now stood in reality, and the crushing presence it exuded was beyond anything words could capture.

KRAKOOM! KRAKOOM!

The sky split open again and again, and every shard born of the cracking heavens went hurtling straight toward the handsome man.

"What a joy this is!"

Ducking, blocking, and taking the fragments of sky head-on, he laughed with pure delight. And before long, the system messages appeared.

The Level 100 I had been waiting for — finally, at last.