A Welcome Reunion
Meeting an old connection after so long is always a welcome thing.
Truth be told, I had already harbored my share of doubts. No... perhaps I had been deliberately looking away from them all this time. After all, if this wasn't a game world I'd been thrown into, there was no clear path to finding the conditions for escape.
There was a time when I had seriously pondered how to leave this world behind. The conclusion I reached back then was, I'll worry about it once I achieve the ending conditions—something will work out. But even that was never conviction. Only hope.
"What if what I'm going through isn't game possession at all...?"
If so, then what would take me back to my original world? As the thought sank deeper, the truths I had unconsciously swept to the corners of my mind began surfacing one by one.
"Was I thrown into yet another dimension? By the schemes of those damned so-called gods? Then what exactly did they need me here for..."
My thoughts were tangling themselves like earbuds left too long in a pocket...
"Haah... fuck."
I spat the curse under my breath. "Come to think of it... it was strange from the very start. No status window, for one... and the people were far too real..."
The questions I had tried so hard to brush aside began eating away at me, slowly and surely. After a long stretch of agonizing, I finally managed to sort through the mess and murmured in a low voice.
"If this really is another dimension, then the only way out is a gate. But that means..."
The year 2000 AD. Gates connecting Earth to other worlds had sprouted up like bamboo after rain. Of course, the emergence of so-called Awakened ones at the same time meant the monsters crawling out of those gates were more or less held at bay. Only after some twenty years had passed did the rough cause behind the gates finally come to light...
"They led to destroyed worlds..."
Every single world linked to Earth had already been swept clean by its own apocalypse. Granted, the criteria for what counted as "destruction" were never exactly clear-cut, but despite the discovery of countless traces of civilization, there were almost no beings capable of communicating with humans. And the rare few who could speak were, without exception, the very things people called Calamities.
Which meant, in other words, that if I wanted to open a gate, this world would have to...
"...be destroyed."
A full cycle of the seasons had come and gone, and I had been living here for nearly a year now. There had been plenty of infuriating moments, sure, but good things had happened too—and I had accumulated more than a few memories worth keeping.
"Noona... Father... Baekhwa... Lady Han..."
Perhaps I had grown fonder of them than I'd realized in that short span, because their faces flickered through my mind unbidden. Had I gone soft? Had living among people changed me? Or was it some nature I had discarded long ago, finally clawing its way back to the surface?
I wrestled with the question long into the night, and before I knew it, I had spent the whole night staring into the dark with open eyes.
Meanwhile, the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament was hurtling toward its finale. With only eight competitors remaining, every one of them was guaranteed the title of Dragon-Phoenix Star no matter who won, so the matches had become purely about crowning a champion. As always, the victor would receive a Great Restoration Pill, custom-forged weaponry, and—if desired—the opportunity to receive personal instruction from some of the Ten Supremes of the Orthodox faction. The excitement was burning hotter than ever.
The two martialists set to open the quarterfinals were the Dang Clan's Young Clan Head, infamous as the Mad Blood Ghost, and a young expert named Hail who claimed with his own mouth to be Orthodox.
I stepped onto the arena stage...
"A pleasure. I'm called Mikhail."
At the sight of him offering me that greeting, I could only freeze solid.
A name that would have been Michael in America. And yet, by some strange quirk, one that could pass as written in Chinese characters. And a name I could never, ever forget...
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
That fortune-teller who'd rambled on about me meeting an old connection turned out to be the genuine article, because at the sight of that face I hadn't seen in what felt like a lifetime, something in me simply snapped. A heart pounding fit to burst, fingers going numb and senseless, teeth chattering uncontrollably against each other.
"Haha... hahahaha... AHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Right up until yesterday I had been agonizing over whether this world was a game or some other reality, but now none of that mattered in the slightest. I had cursed that crazy old fortune-teller so viciously since falling into this world, yet in this moment I couldn't have been more grateful. They do say good fortune finds those who live honestly, and at this unthinkable reunion, I stared at him while laughing myself hoarse.
A handsome man with golden hair and blue eyes. But now the bastard's hair had turned black, those blue eyes remaining. Once, he had been the object of my admiration. Now I wanted to tear him limb from limb. That bastard, stirring up emotions in me this violent...
At the sight of me laughing like a madman with wild, darting eyes, the crowd that had been cheering only moments ago fell dead silent.
"Young Master, are you alright?"
Only that rascal Dusik was shouting over to me, asking if I was okay.
"Yeah, I'm fine... Say, Reverend...?"
After waving Dusik off to reassure him, I turned to address the monk serving as referee.
"Benefactor Muyeong, is something the matter?"
"Have the spectators move further back. At this range, I'm afraid they'll get caught up in what's coming..."
"If that's all, please don't worry. The venerable Sword Saint and Sword Queen are seated over there, so it should be quite safe."
As the shiny-headed monk pointed toward them with his finger, I shook my head slowly and pressed again.
"Just to be safe, I mean... This is a bout between Transcendent Realm fighters. If a bystander gets caught in the crossfire, wouldn't it be Shaolin's reputation that suffers?"
As I spoke with a crooked grin creaking across my face, he nodded in concession and called out to the crowd.
"Everyone, please withdraw thirty feet!"
Once the spectators had pulled back, I swept my hair back and muttered.
"Still doesn't seem like enough..."
"They cannot retreat any further. This much should satisfy you..."
I nodded at his insistence that no more was possible, then turned my gaze back to that bastard.
"Ready whenever you are?"
At his calm, unbothered greeting, I smiled and extended one hand forward.
A sphere of deep crimson blood swelled to the size of a human head in an instant above my open palm...
Kwa-ak—
The moment I clenched my fist around it...
KWAKWAKWAKWAKWAM—
It split into countless branching strands and came surging toward him like a whip.
Tak-tak-tak-tak—
He shifted his footwork, flicking his frame sideways in evasive forms, slipping past everything I sent his way...
"Tch... nimble little rat, aren't you."
Watching him dance between the strands, I formed more orbs as a thought crossed my mind.
No poison... The moment I use it, they'll shut this match down...
Whether some sliver of reason still remained in me, or whether I was simply choosing the optimal path toward what I wanted—I raised both hands above my head and sent the orbs soaring high into the sky.
A rain of blood began drifting down from the heavens. Though with every single drop that struck the ground, the arena floor shattered anew.
"S...Sky-Filling Flower Rain?"
The spectators who witnessed it spoke the name of the Sichuan Dang Clan's signature secret art, astonishment written across their faces. Like that legendary art of blanketing the heavens with countless hidden weapons, the descent of blood-forged projectiles covering the entire arena left Mikhail with nowhere left to run.
Clang—
He promptly tossed aside the cheap iron sword he'd been gripping, reached out, and closed his hand around empty air.
"Caliburn."
With that single word, a grayish-white sword materialized above his palm, and driving it two-handed into the ground...
KWAM—
A massive detonation, and a hemispherical barrier of gray light enclosed him whole. The sight of him blocking the falling blood like a man holding an umbrella on a rainy day wrung a scoff from my throat.
"H...haha..."
In my memory, that blade had been so blindingly white it seared the eyes. Yet now it was a dull, washed-out gray. The barrier should have been white to match, but what he had deployed was colorless and dim.
He looked for all the world like a fallen angel stripped of his original radiance, and the sight was so absurdly funny that I couldn't help but mock him.
"You look ridiculous."
"...What is that supposed to mean?"
"Just how badly did you neglect that sword, for its once-white blade to fade like that? ...I suppose a runaway cur doesn't even have time to polish his own steel?"
"Don't tell me..."
The instant my words ended, his eyes flew wide open. I found the sight of that shocked expression so utterly repulsive that I stopped wasting my breath and clenched my hand.
"Shred him."
The blood strewn chaotically across the arena floor converged around him in a single instant. Then it began to take shape...
"Wh...what is that..."
"A snake...?"
It was like watching a colossal serpent constricting a mouse in its coils, and the spectators could only gape, mouths hanging open. As I clenched my hand tighter, the serpent wrapped round the barrier began squeezing with ever greater force.
KAGAGAGAGAGAK—
"Kgh..."
Was this what it would sound like to tear steel rebar apart? As the sound of something twisting and breaking mingled with his pained groans, I wore a warped smile and began shaping something new with my free hand, fingers toying with the empty air.
Mikhail, sensing his barrier was about to give way, raised his sword once more and brought it down from above his head in a single fluid motion.
"SUNDER!!!"
In that instant—his own barrier, the serpent of fresh blood his opponent had conjured, and beyond the arena stage, even the clouds hanging in the sky... A strike that seemed to split the world itself manifested from his blade.
Clatter—
The Sword Queen, who had been watching the bout escalate, shot to her feet in such alarm that she didn't even register her chair toppling over behind her.
Splitting the sky... No, to be precise, he had cleaved through the clouds, but that much she could manage as well. Yet this was a feat that could never emerge from the hands of one who had only just set foot in the Transcendent Realm.
At his age, reaching that realm at all would have been beyond belief had she not witnessed it with her own eyes—and now he was unleashing a sword strike that a martial artist would only dare attempt upon approaching the very threshold of the Transcendent Realm's pinnacle? Confronted with a scene that shattered her every assumption, she turned her head toward the Sword Saint beside her, meaning to say something.
"Senior... that technique..."
But the Sword Saint was already gone from his seat. Shifting her gaze back to the arena, she saw that at some point he had drawn his blade and was standing guard before the spectators. And before him, Dang Muyeong was charging forward with something clenched in his hand.
Mikhail was heaving for breath, spent from the secret technique he had unleashed for the first time in ages. He had fired off a sword strike so long disused he could barely recall the last time, and every muscle in his body was screaming in protest.
"Hah... hah..."
Then, at his ear, a voice.
"So you've grown weak too?"
He turned toward the sound and saw, behind the blood-red serpent slowly dissolving into mist, a pair of crimson eyes gleaming back at him.
"Then die."
From that hand, a crimson spear came flying.