Second Form: Sunrise
What had begun as an Ether-attribute spell memorized through the effect of his SS-rank staff could, thanks to the effect of his standard-issue equipment, be cast one more time at no cost.
The magic’s effect was brutally straightforward.
Ruin (S)
Collapses the constituent components of all targets within a designated range.
It unmade everything around him.
Do-yun’s only SS-rank skill, Sun Swordsmanship, was still far from complete. In raw destructive power alone, even the First Sword, Dawn, could not compare to Ruin.
“Nyahat! I really can’t figure out how you got your hands on something like this.”
Even as her entire body crumbled into dust, Kaya looked utterly unfazed. She had already realized she could not escape the flow of mana coiled around her and had simply given up resisting.
“Well, looks like I lose this round. Let’s play again in a bit!”
The reason she could stay so calm was simple. Like Do-yun, Kaya possessed a Rune of Resurrection — death did not mean the end for her.
“Ciel. She’s only got one Rune of Resurrection, right?”
“Uh… on the second floor she probably picked the Rune of Glory, and she would have gotten one more on the eighth, so yes — just one!”
Leaving Ciel behind as she earnestly counted on her fingers, Do-yun tightened his grip on his sword. Burning a free-pass that could instantly kill any enemy on Ruin felt painfully wasteful. And yet the threat Kaya represented outweighed that regret.
“If I can, I’ll kill her here and now.”
He was muttering that while watching Kaya’s body, already wrapped in white light as it began to regenerate, when—
Crack.
The walls and floor, reduced to powder by Ruin, gave way, and his field of view opened wide. Even so, with his footing gone, Do-yun did not fall. The wind spirit. Confined indoors, its power had been limited — but it lifted his body into the air all the same. Thanks to that, Do-yun could settle one more question.
So the Rune of Resurrection regenerates you right where you died.
The white sphere encasing Kaya floated motionless in midair where the floor had been. That made things simpler. Just as he had buried El Sion on the first floor, he would drop Kaya out of the sky. Of course, he had no intention of simply letting her fall.
Activates.
While receiving sunlight, physical abilities rise by 50%.
Sunlight pouring through the collapsed ceiling wrapped around Do-yun’s entire body. The enhanced Flame Assimilation no longer absorbed mere heat — it took in light as well.
Whoom.
Feeling his body grow lighter still, Do-yun raised his sword overhead and brought it straight down. An utterly ordinary descending cut. Yet he locked that motion into memory and, without a hair’s deviation, swung the blade along the exact same path again.
Hwoosh.
The force in his hand, the angle of the swing, the spread of his feet — nothing had changed. And still the presence radiating from the sword was wholly different from the first strike.
When the same motion is performed consecutively, the following attack deals twice the damage of the previous one.
It was a sword option so impractical he had only ever used it on the fourth floor to smash scarecrows. But the time Ruin had bought him more than made up for that lack of combat utility. Enduring the sword’s steadily mounting weight, Do-yun thought:
The conditions for using Dawn were heat and speed past the threshold.
Sun Swordsmanship was, true to its name, a style inspired by the sun’s path and form. Its first technique, Dawn, embodied the daybreak that erases darkness and lights the world. The light that leaps out the instant the sun clears the horizon is faster than anything else — and so the blade that mimicked that dawn became a thrust that erased enemies at blinding speed.
Then what of the second form, shaped after the moment the sun stood at its highest — high noon?
Noon. The hour when every shadow is shortest, when darkness has nowhere left to hide. The lofty sun looking down on all creation, pouring light upon every living thing. To imitate that brilliance, what he needed was comparatively simple.
“Overwhelming power.”
Do-yun clenched his teeth until they nearly cracked and poured strength into his fingertips. Even with his physical ability raised by Flame Assimilation, the sword felt crushingly heavy.
Hwoosh.
Sylphy stirred the air to cool the sweat on his skin, but the wind that touched him felt hot rather than cool.
Scorching Sword (C)
Flames blooming from the blade were heating everything around him. If not for the restriction that flames born of his own mana could not feed Flame Assimilation, his stats would already have climbed toward something like perpetual motion.
“Ah! That person just twitched their fingers!”
Every scrap of his focus had been locked on holding the sword’s trajectory. Only Ciel’s clear voice ringing at his ear made him lift his head. Just as she said, Kaya — regeneration nearly complete — was starting to stir.
Shhhk.
Watching the thin membrane that had been shielding her fade little by little, Do-yun swung the blow he had prepared especially for her.
“Hnn?”
What finally filled Kaya’s amber eyes was a savage torrent of power painting her entire field of vision red.
The heat of the sword has transcended its critical threshold!
The power contained in the sword has transcended its critical threshold!
Understanding of Sun Swordsmanship (SS) has risen by 10%.
Current Understanding — 30%
You have grasped the method of using the Second Sword: Sunrise.
Overwhelming violence plunging from the apex. Even then Kaya tried to move, desperate to dodge somehow — but unlike Dawn, Sunrise was not bound to a point or a line.
KRAAAAAAAAAASH!
A vortex of fire and heat shattered what little shape the room still held and tore the space itself apart. Kaya’s body was no exception.
“……!”
A wind-roar that felt like it would split eardrums drowned out whatever death cry she might have made. Maybe she took it as calmly as she had taken Ruin. Or maybe she was cursing him for cheating. All Do-yun could see was her body, wrecked by the blast of heat, sent flying.
KRA-KOOM!
All of that happened when his sword was only halfway through its swing. Even with the goal of finishing Kaya achieved, the blade did not stop. A sword already loaded past its limit was not something that stopped just because he wished it. It drove on, struck the floor, and poured every last shockwave downward.
Rumble…
An ominous sound, and the building settled a fraction. On the first floor he had broken its balance; from the summit he had yanked that precarious balance hard to one side. However solidly the Company building had been constructed, it could take no more.
Is she dead?
Do-yun’s gaze, though, was not on the collapsing Company. It followed Kaya’s body still arcing away into the distance. Surviving a direct hit of heat fierce enough to cook her insides should have been impossible by any sane measure — and still he could not rest easy.
Flash.
Then a green glitter at the point where she had flown confirmed his grim suspicion.
A green crystal…!
One of the colored crystals obtainable on the ninth floor, it rewound the body’s time by five seconds. Its uses were endless — recovering from poison or status ailments without an antidote, chaining mana-heavy skills back to back. But Kaya, like most who obtained a green crystal, used it to nullify the fatal wound she had just taken.
“Of all things, she had to have that.”
Watching Kaya’s body slowly regenerate again, Do-yun could not hide his frustration. She had climbed to the summit by the orthodox route of clearing the traps, so of course she had gotten her hands on a crystal he had never obtained. A follow-up strike now might still have finished her — but he could only lower his sword with a bitter smile.
His arms were shaking too hard to even hold the blade properly. The Second Sword, Sunrise, placed a brutal burden on the body. Without the HP system, broken bones would not have been surprising.
Remaining HP — 26
The health alert flashing an angry red, declaring him near death, was proof enough. Sunrise was a technique that could not be used without driving the body past its absolute limit.
Looking at the power, though, I can’t bring myself to complain.
He turned his head slightly and took in the wreckage Sunrise’s aftershock had left behind. Steel beams bubbling as they boiled into molten metal. A floor scored with gouges as if some colossal beast had raked it with its claws.
“Damn it, we were almost there!”
“What the hell just happened up there?”
Looking down, he could see other challengers as well — others who must have been chasing the summit on Kaya’s heels. Every face pressed against the wall wore the same blanched expression. A moment slower to notice the torrent of force pouring from above, and they would have died.
“There! That bastard’s the one who did it!”
In that instant, Do-yun’s eyes met a man’s below. The man spat the words and immediately launched himself through the gaping hole, charging straight at him. Even guessing Do-yun had just wrought that devastation, he showed not a shred of hesitation.
“Anyone who caused that much destruction can’t be in great shape either!”
Without exchanging a single word, the other challengers reached a silent consensus: rather than watch each other, they would prioritize taking Do-yun down.
“What am I going to do about this.”
Even so, Do-yun watched them without losing his composure. The man was right — his condition was nothing to boast of. His HP had entered a near-death state, and his mana was scraping the bottom. The ace he could have called a trump card, Ruin, had already been spent on Kaya. The reason he could still stay this calm was simple.
Return to the Sanctuary Room?
Fiddling with the clear crystals tucked carefully against his chest brought the alert floating up.
“I have no intention of dealing with you at all.”
Flash.
As white light swallowed him, the last thing Do-yun saw was the challengers’ faces — mid-charge on pure desperation, frozen into looks of pure, hollow disbelief.