The Nameless Step

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

“Ah... how long has it been since I felt this free?”

Poison Baron threw his chest open, savoring a liberation he hadn't felt in ages.

Demons who crossed over into this world were bound by a kind of restraint.

And Poison Baron had torn that restraint off by force.

There had been a penalty, of course, but the result was more than worth the price.

With this much power, it won't take long to wipe out those vermin.

The moment the seal came undone, the wave of demonic energy that erupted had already silenced every trace of the humans nearby.

So bugs were bugs all along.

The presence of the human who had fought him on equal footing was gone now, too.

So were the presences of the humans who had cut down his monsters.

“Since I've let my power loose anyway, I suppose I should clear out the rest of these insects.”

With those words, Poison Baron crossed the DMZ and gazed out over South Korea.

A developed city, yes — but to a demon like him, it was nothing more than a toy built by bugs thrashing about in their death throes.

“Then...”

Poison Baron gathered his demonic energy and funneled it into the spear in his grip.

And he swung.

No — he tried to swing.

Shffk!

Damn it — too shallow.

I'd ambushed him, but against a demon — one that had already unleashed its True Body — it was far too weak a strike.

Still, my attack had done one thing: it stopped that hideous demonic energy from sweeping toward South Korea.

“Hah. So you survived inside that?”

The madness Poison Baron had worn until a moment ago was gone; now he spoke as if the whole thing were absurd.

There was no denying it — the tidal wave of demonic energy released when he shed his True Body's seal had been immense.

“I nearly had you, you know.”

“Surviving inside that, and you still have jokes left in you.”

Poison Baron's spear leveled at me.

I settled into my stance as well, one dagger held in a standard grip, the other reversed.

“Hup.”

The instant I exhaled, I lunged at Poison Baron and swung my daggers.

Clang!

Once again, he parried my blade without effort.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

My attacks came in an unbroken chain, and Poison Baron — freed of his seal — deflected every one of them with ease.

I can't let go of this rhythm.

If I lost the flow here and fell into defending, I would be cut down without even a chance to fight back.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

My assault continued, and Poison Baron did nothing but block.

But something had changed from before.

He's getting nervous.

Anxiety had crept into the eyes of the demon behind that spear wall.

The same demon who'd been so relaxed moments ago was suddenly on edge.

The penalty must be kicking in.

Before my regression, many demons had walked around in their True Bodies, but I'd heard that forcibly unsealing it in the past carried a penalty.

At least if I stall for time, the odds tilt my way.

I swung my daggers with everything I had, clawing to keep the momentum alive.

But the harder I tried, the more strength drained from my arms.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Stats pushing five thousand, techniques honed through battles against that very level, a Legendary+ grade weapon.

And yet against Poison Baron, I was the one losing the flow.

Clang! Clang!

Exchanges that had taken three strikes were ending in two.

Both of us were tiring.

But if this kept up, the first one to fall would be me.

I have to end it before that happens.

Clang! Clang!

Two more exchanges crossed between us, and even after that our weapons kept slamming together again and again.

My stamina had long since hit its limit.

Poison Baron's arms were starting to lose their power, too.

Each of us could feel the other's edge.

“Hahahaha!”

Whether to hold himself together, the demon had been laughing since some time ago.

To keep my stamina drain to a minimum, I attacked and parried with the smallest movements I could manage.

Things were bad enough that even the System was sending me messages like this.

But I kept swinging my daggers.

And then, the balance began to crack.

Urgh!

My arms felt like they were caught in a cramp — the strength simply wouldn't come.

What was swinging my arms now wasn't my will; it was something closer to pure instinct.

Poison Baron didn't miss that moment. His spear began moving faster.

Clang! Shffk! Clang!

I couldn't block the incoming spear entirely — the blade grazed past my cheek.

A poison even Hundred Poisons Immunity couldn't fully repel had wormed its way into my body.

The one mercy was that thanks to the resistance it mounted, the damage stopped at a stat reduction.

But the instant those stats dropped, my balance would collapse completely.

Shffk!

“Urgh!”

Poison Baron's spear raked across my thigh.

I twisted my body to dodge, but it was already too late.

Now I'm fully on the back foot.

With that poison in my veins, the power gap had tipped unmistakably against me.

And on top of that, I'd allowed another clean hit.

The debuff had climbed by another ten percent.

If I let him land seven more strikes from here, I was dead.

And to turn this situation around, there was only one card left to play.

“Limit Break.”

With my word as the key, mana whipped through my body in a rapid circuit — and my stats climbed higher than they'd been even before the debuff.

And on top of that, every poison inside me was purified in an instant.

“You truly are a fascinating human!”

“Let's finish this.”

Sensing my surge in power, Poison Baron laughed with something like delight.

Leave it to a race mad for battle — his opponent getting stronger only made him happier.

“I'll kill you with my full strength.”

“You talk too much.”

And the villain who talks too much... always dies.

The two of us unleashed our techniques at the same instant.

Nameless Footwork.

First Step.

Pacheon?

The moment my foot fell, something felt wrong in a way I couldn't quite name.

I couldn't tell whether the footwork I was running right now was really Pacheon.

I was definitely trying to step into Pacheon.

But my body had moved on its own.

Just like the way it moved by itself when I slipped into the state of no-mind.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the instant I recognized that, a faint realization settled over me.

How did I create the Nameless Footwork in the first place?

I couldn't remember.

The footwork I'd only ever sketched out in my head before the regression wasn't this.

And yet at some point, I had simply been using the Nameless Footwork naturally, without ever deciding to.

The Nameless Footwork isn't something you forge on purpose. It's something that forms on its own.

I wasn't forcing footwork into existence.

The moment I moved naturally, that movement simply became the next step.

So stop thinking about it.

There was no need to wrestle my body into motion.

All I had to do was let the footwork fall where it wanted to fall.

Like water finding its course — surrender completely to the flow.

“You shall not pass.”

“Hmm... a human thinks it can stop us?”

“And while you're not even fully yourself, at that.”

After slipping away from Poison Baron's attack, the two of them had waited in the forest, cutting down every demon and monster that approached.

And then they had run into two demons.

They're strong.

Jin Won-ae knew it, too.

She and Jin Baek-rim alone could not beat the two in front of them.

These demons were on a completely different level from the one they'd met before.

They'd already lost to a weak demon — there was no way they could handle strong ones.

“Even so, I can't let you through.”

“I suppose livestock really can't be reasoned with?”

“Livestock is livestock.”

Both their arms were trembling — faintly, but trembling all the same.

And yet the reason the two of them stood their ground and held the line was simple.

Lord Silver Wolf will win!

Master will win!

Their absolute faith in Han Jin.

And on top of that, each of them had raised her stats considerably through her own skills.

Jin Baek-rim, who had only just crossed level 100, had grown remarkably strong.

As the standoff stretched on, it was the demons who moved first.

“Die.”

“Hah!”

At the demon's casual, almost lazy punch, Jin Won-ae shifted and parried it.

The demon's face contorted.

“You...”

A fist thrown with the full intent of ending things in a single blow — blocked by livestock.

A crack ran through his pride.

“Stop showing off, brother.”

BOOM! Shffk!

At that moment, the younger demon moved.

His target was Jin Baek-rim, still tensed and waiting.

His fist shot out, the recoil tearing the surrounding air apart.

And at the very same instant, the fist was severed from its arm.

“Aaargh!”

Robbed of a fist without warning, the demon threw back his head and screamed, thrashing in frenzy.

Having lived his whole life as a reasonably high-tier predator, the younger brother had no tolerance for pain.

“Hah...”

Jin Baek-rim, meanwhile, was dripping cold sweat.

I—I almost died.

When the demon's fist came flying in, her body had moved before she understood why.

And in the same breath, on pure instinct, her spear had swung and taken his hand off.

“Bere—!”

Shffk!

He tried to move, calling his brother's name — and in that gap, his back was cut open.

Jin Won-ae, the one who'd flown away moments ago, had returned.

“You little—!”

The elder demon saw Jin Won-ae strike from behind, his face twisting with shock.

Jin Baek-rim didn't let that opening pass. She swung her spear.

Shffk!

In a single stroke, the younger demon's head left his shoulders.

“Bereta!”

Shffk!

The elder screamed — and in that instant, Jin Won-ae's sword was already arcing toward his head.

Clang!

But the enraged demon blasted out his demonic energy and held the blade at bay.

“No—!”

The instant the ambush failed, she moved to disengage, but there was no escaping the demon's counter.

WHAM!

“Kgh—!”

A fist arrived faster than the eye could follow, and Jin Won-ae went flying, blood erupting from her mouth.

The enraged demon held nothing back and spared nothing — there was no carelessness in him now.

“How dare you... how dare livestock kill my brother? How dare livestock—!”

As Jin Won-ae tumbled through the air, the demon's fury swung toward Jin Baek-rim.

And Jin Baek-rim moved — naturally, just as before.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Fists came flying, one after another, and Jin Baek-rim slipped past every single one with an ease that looked almost casual.

And in the same breath, her spear swung.

Shffk!

A demon met its end to a single strike that belonged, without exaggeration, to the realm of genius.

The demon had come at her with everything he had — and still could not surpass genius.

Jin Baek-rim, barely past level 100, had killed two demons relying on nothing but the territory of pure talent.

And then she understood.

Master is on a whole different scale.

What she had accomplished by surrendering to talent and instinct, her master would have done through deliberate, practiced skill — no accident, no luck.

As she was praising her master yet again in her heart, the world went dark.