The Power of the Red Crystal

The names of the countless skills Do-yun had gathered so far floated before his eyes. Without a second of hesitation, he dropped his gaze straight to the bottom of the list.

If he was going to enhance something, it had to be the highest-ranked skill he possessed. It was a choice no returnee who had obtained a Red Crystal back in the Tower of Trials could ever have made.

Those people only ever had F-rank skills to choose from.

Do-yun had simply swept up rewards in the abnormal environment of the Tower of Ascension. Even catching a glimpse of anything higher than F-rank ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠before the tenth floor was unthinkable under normal circumstances. Selecting Sun Swordsmanship as the target, he sent the crystal a look brimming with anticipation.

How exactly will it get stronger?

Every returnee who had succeeded in claiming a Red Crystal said the same thing. An enhanced skill was no longer bound by the existing rank system. Even an F-rank skill had drawn gasps of pure awe—so what would an SS-rank skill become?

Do-yun stared at the alert with eyes full of expectation—until the additional windows that followed made his expression twist in confusion.

The secondary skills he had unlocked one by one as his understanding of Sun Swordsmanship deepened—those were being enhanced as well. Not a bad thing. In fact, it was an extremely good thing.

KRAAAANG!

Just as Do-yun was calmly about to examine every change one by one, a skull-splitting explosion shattered the chairman’s office door into splinters, and a human figure came tumbling through the wreckage. The person who had been thrown sprawling across the floor lifted their head, body blackened with soot.

“Someone got here before me, huh?”

Slitted, razor-sharp eyes. Two pointed cat ears rising sharply from the top of her head. It was Gale Kaya. The instant she spotted Do-yun, her eyes lit with manic light and she launched herself forward.

Shhhk.

Do-yun twisted aside by a hair’s breadth, nails scraping past his face, and screamed internally. El Sion was the same—how the hell did these people produce speeds like this without even using skills?

THUD!

Even after missing, Kaya could not rein in her momentum and slammed straight into the opposite wall. Only then did Do-yun notice that her condition was far from normal. Soot caked every limb, the sharp reek of gunpowder stung his nose, and every hair on her body stood on end as if she had been scorched by electricity.

She climbed the Company the proper way, all the way to the top floor.

Those wounds had clearly been earned forcing her way through the building’s defensive systems. While Do-yun had scaled the exterior wall, Kaya had been fighting her own desperate battle.

“Hmm. Guess that last explosion knocked my balance out of whack.”

Kaya compressed her horrific physical state into that single light remark. She wrenched her twisted joints back into place with sharp cracks, then casually shook out her legs. After a few trial motions she adapted to her ruined senses, nodded in satisfaction, and turned her head.

“Shall we try that again?”

Of course Do-yun had not simply stood and watched while she performed her makeshift first aid.

He poured every scrap of mana he could spare into the sheath. Fierce heat rolled off it. He had not had enough time to raise the heat high enough to fully satisfy the conditions of Sun Swordsmanship, but even so the blow would be more than threatening.

KRA-KA-KA-KAK!

Watching Kaya charge with nails bared, Do-yun released the hilt he had been holding down. Because the sheath had been crafted from a railgun barrel, the blade tore free at a speed the eye could not follow and swept the space ahead of him.

“Too obvious.”

Yet all Do-yun saw was Kaya already clear of the sword’s path. She had dropped her body so low it nearly scraped the floor, a thick sneer carved across her face.

She predicted it?

Even for Kaya, a blade drawn from the Acceleration Sheath should have been too fast to react to. But she had already known exactly where Do-yun would swing. She possessed no mind-reading ability. She simply read the flow of battle with perfect clarity.

“I can see the exact timing of every sword stroke.”

She needed neither skills nor mana. The twitch of a shoulder, the frantic dart of the eyes, the fractional gap between inhale and exhale—after enough life-or-death fights, those alone let a fighter read an opponent’s intent. Do-yun had experienced battles that decided life and death, but his knowledge of combat between superhumans was still woefully incomplete.

“That so?”

Yet even Kaya could not predict everything. Namely, that Do-yun possessed a skill he should not have been able to use at this stage.

Mana drained from his body in a sudden rush as the alert appeared. Kaya, already springing at him again, desperately raised her nails into a guard.

CLANG!

The delayed crash of metal rang through the room. As Kaya stared down at her cracked nails, Do-yun returned the sneer in full.

“What, didn’t see that one coming?”

Until now, Afterimage had required him to load mana first and then swing. After the enhancement of Sun Swordsmanship, the condition had changed. Even an attack already completed could be retroactively designated as the skill’s target.

The enhancement effect really is ridiculous.

Do-yun had rarely used Afterimage before. The passive requirement of pre-loading the skill and then luring the enemy in had made it too restrictive. The enhanced version cast off that limitation entirely, allowing him to selectively materialize only confirmed hits. A reinforcement that could literally collapse a skill’s operating mechanism—that was exactly why returnees praised the Red Crystal until their tongues went dry.

“How’s it feel getting hit by an attack you thought you already dodged?”

The target he had applied Afterimage to was none other than the draw he had just performed. Its power was far weaker than a direct hit from the draw itself, but it was more than enough—overflowing, even—to spike Kaya’s wariness to the limit.

“Nyahat! Fun little ability you’ve got there.”

Kaya’s twisted smile vanished along with her entire body. For a split second Do-yun thought she had used a stealth skill, but the alert that appeared told him otherwise.

She had simply moved too fast for the eye to track. By the time he realized it, her nails were already streaking toward his eyes.

I can’t dodge this.

The instant he understood, Do-yun triggered a skill.

Kaya’s body passed straight through Do-yun’s form as it turned smoke-like. It should have been a deeply disorienting situation, yet she continued her next attack without the slightest pause.

Shraaak. Once, twice, three times. Her nails raked through the space where Do-yun’s body had been. None of the strikes inflicted the slightest damage, but Kaya never stopped her hands. She seemed to know perfectly well that abilities of this type could not be maintained for long.

Even so, she had not predicted that Do-yun’s body would suddenly vanish. When his form disappeared right in front of her, she had no choice but to freeze for a fraction of a second.

Crrrk.

Do-yun erupted from Kaya’s own shadow and seized her ankle with crushing force, hard enough to shatter bone. Then he swung her body like a blunt weapon and slammed her mercilessly toward the floor.

KRAAAANG!

Dust billowed upward as fragments of the luxurious hardwood flooring exploded in every direction. Yet what was embedded in the floor was only Do-yun’s empty hand. In midair Kaya had twisted with liquid flexibility, coiling her body around his arm as the fulcrum.

Grinning, her amber eyes curved into crescent moons as they met his, and a chill raced down Do-yun’s entire spine.

“Shit…!”

He clenched his teeth and focused every shred of concentration on the left arm she clung to.

His entire arm flared red-hot as crimson mana erupted like a detonation. The enhanced Scorching Sword could now ignite targets that were not blades. Skin-searing heat transferred straight into Kaya’s body.

“Tch.”

With a short click of her tongue Kaya sprang free of his arm. Not because of the pain—because her already half-charred limbs risked being completely severed.

I never wanted to test my skills’ performance like this.

In the brief lull created by Kaya’s retreat, Do-yun looked at her and exhaled. The outrageous power of the enhanced skills had let him land a few solid hits, but none of them had been decisive. The situation was hardly favorable.

The moment my mana runs dry, it’s over.

A glance at the status window in the corner of his vision showed roughly half his mana remaining. He had to finish this in one exchange—two at most.

“You’re weird, you know that? Not a single drop of blood comes out.”

Kaya was licking the nails she had used to try and rake his arm. Setting aside how many hygiene problems that raised, the sight itself was thoroughly unsettling. If the stamina system had not protected him, a mere scratch from those nails would have left him suffering diseases worse than tetanus.

“You’re one to talk.”

Do-yun recalled the sensation he had felt when he seized her arm. Cool and smooth, exactly like gripping a metal surface. As the thought continued, a single puzzle piece that could explain the entire situation clicked into place inside his head.

“Never thought there’d be a lunatic who enchants the Rune of Evolution onto her own body.”

“Bingo∼!”

Like Do-yun, Kaya was a frequent visitor to the Hall of Fame. He had wondered where she used her Rune of Evolution since she never carried any particular weapon. Apparently she had simply smeared it all over herself.

“Why not? My body’s just another tool.”

It was a perspective he had never considered. The reason he had never considered it, however, was that it was pure madness.

“Is there any way to reverse it?”

“Nope? Why would I reverse such a great upgrade?”

Watching Kaya ask the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠question as if she genuinely could not understand him, Do-yun made a silent vow. He would never become a psychopath like the one standing in front of him.

It’s basically no different from turning yourself into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a cyborg.

Do-yun’s own will to live was fairly strong, but if it came down to using methods like that, he would rather die as a human being.

Still, her strength is an undeniable fact.

He finally understood how Kaya could move so fast without skills. She had probably embedded some form of “swiftness” enchantment into her body. Judging by how hard her skin was, “durability” was a baseline. And given that she kept fighting with a body half destroyed, “combat continuation” or “pain reduction” types had likely been added as well.

“Nyahahat! Ready to start again?”

Kaya, too, seemed to have reached her own conclusion about Do-yun’s stamina system. She stopped rolling her eyes in restless search and settled into a combat stance.

What the hell am I supposed to do?

Even with limbs hanging half-severed she possessed an astonishing level of combat power. When her body was intact she must have been an absolute monster. On top of that, Kaya also possessed a Rune of Resurrection. With this golden opportunity right in front of him, he at least had to claim one of her lives.

“Ah, screw it.”

After grinding his thoughts to the limit, Do-yun simply abandoned the calculation. No matter how rag-doll Kaya’s current state was, she still possessed the experience of someone who had climbed the Tower of Trials all the way to the top. In the pure human-versus-human combat that seemed to be her specialty, he stood no chance of winning.

Then I just have to change the method.

Do-yun drove his sword into the floor and poured every last drop of mana into it.

In the next instant, everything around them shattered into dust.