Solo Swordmaster

Episode #121. You are now dead.

* * *

Let’s turn back time a little.

Before Wei Ling was startled and freaked out.

Shortly after I had just sent information on affiliates to Limon.

After crossing the city along the route she sent, Limon took action as soon as he arrived at the building with the nameplate “Black Dragon Insurance” on it.

“Comrades, I want you to give me some advice. Giving their lives to that company…”

Kwaaaang!

“Where is the bastard barking!”

“Kkeuk?!”

Follow the voice that is talking somewhere.

Break the wall and jump in.

Until kicked in the back of the head.

Limon took down Ryu Kang-cheol in the blink of an eye by performing all of those movements neatly like water flowing.

No matter how much it was a surprise, it was a scene that made them feel futile for those who had been desperately delaying against Ryu Kang-cheol.

“What is it?”

“That gray hair… Limon Aspelder?!”

“Why is the author here!?”

However, the soldiers of Black Dragon Insurance, who were suffering from bloody appearances, did not even feel futility.

It was because he was busy making a game as if he met a tiger after seeing Limon who jumped out of nowhere.

You saved me, and this is the reaction.

It was usually something to be displeased with.

However, Limon, who had no expectations for the Black Dragon clan in the first place, did not care about the existence of the warriors at all.

He just slammed Ryu Kang-cheol into the ground with his sword.

Fu-wook!

“100 million! What is this Iggy doing?”

“I’ll finish it soon, so please shut up.”

“Suddenly, I became an insect specimen, and I was told to shut up…! Kuuk?!”

“Tsk, I’m afraid someone might not be a bastard.”

Limon crushed his groin mercilessly, blocking Ryu Kang-cheol’s mouth and making him bite into crab foam as an added bonus.

And I pondered for a while.

‘Now, what should I do?’

Even a sword master has one body.

No matter how much Limon was, he couldn’t run alone and protect all the numerous affiliates.

Nevertheless, the reason he made a vague declaration to Wei Ling was because he had a trick in mind.

‘As expected, I can’t cut it with the water-saving moonflower incense, but this.’

If Ryu Kang-cheol’s alter ego was a fantasy.

Limon could have cut off all of Ryu Kang-cheol’s alter egos with a single sword and even took his life.

That is the art of a yam dragon slaughter knife.

It was the trick of water-saving lunar flower incense that cuts away the reality by cutting through the illusion just as cutting off the moon reflected on the surface of the water and cutting down the moon in the sky.

However, when I hit it myself, Ryu Kang-chul’s alter ego was not ‘reflection’.

It was a single entity.

If I had to compare it, it would be the difference between countless virtual images reflected in a parallel mirror and the two products that were recklessly printed in a factory.

‘I guessed roughly, but.’

There was no way to solve the situation with a knife, but Limon was not greatly disappointed.

From the moment I saw Ryu Kang-chul’s alter ego, I had an intuition that it wasn’t just an illusion.

Just needed confirmation.

And even if it wasn’t for water-saving lunar flower incense, he had plenty of means to use.

“Where can I see you?”

Limon narrowed his eyes.

And he looked down at Ryu Kang-cheol with black eyes instead of the original gold.

The power of a star that I perfectly mastered thanks to steadily playing the deep-dark violin and melting starlight while hanging out with Eugene.

The eyes to see the constellation were activated.

If Ryu Kang-chul’s alter ego was based on skill, he predicted that he would see something.

That prediction was exactly right.

‘This is…’

The moment I saw ‘it’ for the first time.

Limon thought of Parasite.

Countless insects ripped Ryu Gang-cheol’s eyes, nose, mouth, pores, and skin, wriggling half-protruding, because there was no such thing as an insect’s nest.

However, after observing for a while, Limon realized that it was an illusion.

‘tree?’

What looked like skin was the bark of a tree.

It is the root that wriggles all the time.

What flows instead of blood is sap.

A strange illusion, as if a living tree had been trimmed into a human shape, was overlaid on Ryu Kang-cheol.

‘Hmm, I guess this is the Constellation contracted with this guy. How is this…?’

Limon narrowed his eyes.

After obtaining the eyes to see the constellations.

It was Limon who met many players and looked at the constellation.

However, like Kang-Cheol Ryu, the player who looked so deeply overlapped with the constellation that it was hard to find the original human figure was the second player.

“like?”

It was then that Limon, who was looking at the constellation, found something like a red stem hanging down behind Ryu Kang-cheol’s tailbone.

Limon averted his eyes slightly.

Then, seeing the red stems extending beyond the floor to the outside of the building, I twisted my lips.

“Look at this?”

Limon stepped on the red stem.

TWO TWO TWO.

Like blood vessels connected to the heart.

Red stems that pulsate at regular intervals.

Sensing the pulsation with the sensitive senses of a sword master, Limon let out an absurd laugh.

This stem is the key to maintaining Ryu Gang-cheol’s alter ego.

It was because it was immediately apparent that it was a pipeline supplying fuel and, at the same time, a thread for a puppet.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a pup that proudly shows off its tail like this in front of me.”

It was not incomprehensible.

In the first place, the eye itself that sees the constellations is an ability that has never been heard or even seen.

So, like most of the constellations that Limon has seen so far, Ryu Kang-cheol’s constellation probably didn’t even feel the need to hide this stem.

He must have had the confidence that he wouldn’t mind being caught.

He would have thought that even if a mere human saw this, he wouldn’t dare harm the Constellation.

One problem.

Of course, the only exception among those ‘only humans’ was that he was discovering it at this moment and blinking his eyes like a madman.

“You’re a baby now.”

One time to mutter coldly.

Limon focused his senses on the inside of the red stem, holding the sword that had driven Ryu Kang-chul to the ground.

TWO TWO TWO.

Whenever the stem pulsates, the flow of enormous force flows back and forth within it.

follow the flow

From Ryu Kang-cheol’s alter ego to his stem.

A flow connected to the outside along the stem.

As the distance increases, the senses become duller and the pulsation becomes vague.

But it doesn’t stop.

focus focus focus.

I sharpen my dulled senses, clearly trace back the blurred pulsations, and keep chasing the far-away flow.

100 meters 500 meters 1 kilometer.

Like a skilled fisherman who can pinpoint the location of a fish hidden in the water with just the vibration of a single thread.

Just like when chasing a demon who fled to the other side of the earth long ago.

With the concentration of a sword master that cuts down even a speck of dust, he further expands his already sharp senses to follow the invisible current.

5 km 10 km 30 km.

So endlessly expand your senses.

Detect the stems spreading all over the place.

The moment you recognize the numerous roots.

“—Caught.”

Awesome!

Limon cut the head of Ryu Kang-chul, who was wriggling in a half-corpse.

What began to disperse was the flow.

The power of the constellation, which had been moving Ryu Gang-cheol’s alter ego so far, discards the skin that has lost its use and flows smoothly through the stem.

That was the opportunity Limon was aiming for.

blame blame blame

One step in pursuit of the flow of power.

One step closer to the root.

One step while swinging the sword.

When I took just three steps like that.

Limon suddenly reached another root that was attacking other affiliates, namely Ryu Kang-cheol’s alter ego.

“…omg?”

Maybe it was because he couldn’t comprehend that Limon, who had been kicking the other himself a while ago, suddenly jumped out in front of him over a distance of several kilometers.

Ryu Kang-cheol made a dumb noise with an expression as if his eyes were about to pop out.

Awesome!

before he even came to his senses.

Limon’s sword blew off Ryu Kang-cheol’s head again.

A death that is more empty and simpler than the first alter ego, literally like an ant trampled by a tank wheel.

But that was just the beginning.

blame blame blame

clap clap clap clap.

Whenever an alter ego collapses, it follows the flow of power moving along its stem, takes a step, approaches another alter ego, and cuts it down.

You get used to it over and over again.

The more you get used to it, the faster it gets.

It is labor that has become flat in the end.

It was no longer a battle or anything, it was just a repetition of a simple task that was no different from splitting potatoes one after another on a conveyor belt.

The only difference is that it is a person who moves, not a conveyor belt, and a level 80 player, not a potato, that is split.

“Iggy what?!”

“for a moment…!”

“Such tricks… Gap!”

“Shit?!”

Of course, Liu Kang-cheol was not taken lightly.

Because they are connected to each other by stems, they felt threatened by Limon and quickly responded.

But all that fuss was to no avail.

Whether it’s a counterattack with the right timing.

leave the place in a hurry.

Whether you increase your alter ego and do joint work.

It was impossible to avoid Limon, who appeared like a ghost along the stem itself connected to them and cut his throat at an invisible speed.

And as Limon repeatedly cut him off, Ryu Kang-cheol’s reaction gradually changed.

At first with bewilderment.

Intrigued by the contingency.

In anger at the one-sided death.

Later, with the helplessness of being driven to the end.

After repeated changes one after another, one emotion finally emerged in those eyes.

-fear.

It was a very strange feeling for Ryu Kang-cheol, who had lived a life of making fun of other people’s deaths as well as his own, considering himself a predator.

“This monster…!”

Nevertheless, Ryu Kang-cheol could not shake his fear.

A terrifying sword that cuts even the will.

Desperately overwhelming skill.

And more than anything else, those languid eyes, as if he felt only the thrill of splitting a piece of wood while cutting himself, were telling him.

This white-haired man is a true predator.

That he is the apex of all food chains and the most perfect killer.

And it was not only Ryu Kang-cheol who felt it.

“…what just happened?”

“Is that white hair a swordsman?”

“Oh my God… the guy who slaughtered dozens of us warriors didn’t even notice a second?”

From masters who fought against Ryu Kang-cheol to unarmed soldiers who were unilaterally slaughtered, and even those whose bodies were torn apart with knives.

The Black Dragon clan, which guarded each affiliate, shuddered.

All affiliates refused to sign a contract with Guardian.

In other words, it was a place where the mainstream of the clan was hostile to Limon, ignoring him as a degenerate of the past.

However, the moment they saw Limon disappeared after slashing Ryu Kang-chul, who had driven them to the brink of death, with a single sword.

they realized

What kind of existence is a Sword Master?

How crazy it was to laugh at Limon.

What kind of tragedy could happen if he turned him into an enemy?

Why have countless ancestors been unable to overcome the stronghold of swordsmithing for hundreds of years?

And the fact that the reason why Li Ching-yu gave everything to promote the marriage with Limon might not be just stupidity.

In the midst of the well-springing fear, they were forced to come to an understanding.