<782 – Like a True Warrior (28)>
Beauty is everything that pleases humans.
Aesthetics is the study of such beauty.
If someone were to ask Oknodie why they spent hundreds of hours on “Graduating the Academy by Luck,” it would be a story about aesthetics.
‘They’re really putting in the effort.’
‘They just keep collapsing left and right.’
‘Do they all really want to succeed so much after graduating?’
The NPCs’ strong ambitions stirred deep emotions in a player who was feeling bored from consuming countless games.
I’m envious.
I envy them for being faithful to their one and only life.
It triggered a sense of disparity between those who could experience so many lives and a player like myself who couldn’t take any life seriously.
Sometimes it even turned into jealousy.
So, I broke things.
And immediately regretted it.
Faced with lives lived seriously, feelings that surpassed boredom and ennui could only stem from a life I could afford to look down upon.
Such lives in the Academy, where dozens, hundreds, thousands exist.
I wanted to get closer to that life.
But I realized something.
‘I’m different.’
I didn’t possess any amazing talent like them.
All I had was a player’s vision, knowledge, and strategies.
In the initial dozens of tries, I was barely able to keep up with those ahead of me.
In the next dozens of tries, I was busy dealing with inevitable school crises and chapter bosses that showed up at some point.
Only after surpassing a hundred did I begin to notice.
The absurd structure of this world.
The “triggers” of ‘tragedy’ that won’t change unless you’re a player.
If you save someone, at the same time, another will fall into tragedy.
If you stop one event, another event worsens simultaneously.
Focusing on those trivial campus events will lead to regional crises, then world crises.
If I focus on stopping the regional and world crises, my peers, comrades, and friends in campus will fall into danger.
‘I need to hurry. A little more, even one turn faster, to push through more events!’
I invested all my studying time into memorizing exam answers, genealogy, and began creating a build specialized in event removal.
The first strategy series born from this was [Agility All-in Level-up Thief].
However, the Agility All-in series had a critical lack.
“I’ll grant you speed. Yes, just speed. That’s all the acknowledgment you’ll receive!”
“It doesn’t matter if you take damage. In the end, you’re just another human who can’t live without society.”
“If you can dodge, then dodge as much as you want. If you want to watch everything you wish to protect disappear while you alone survive.”
You can only watch as the area attack of a strong foe above a certain level ravages and destroys all allies, regions, and countries except yourself.
No matter how much you dodge forward, you only end up losing everyone in the process, meaning speed wasn’t the answer at all.
Even if I gathered hidden pieces alone, the wall of the three great evils wouldn’t be surmountable, leading only to a painful victory and a bad ending.
“I’ve suffered such defeats countless times.”
“I’ve experienced an unbearable amount of them.”
“But this time, it’s different.”
The [Physical Resistance All-in Pattern Understanding Warriors] shared the pattern information they obtained at the cost of their lives.
“Impact attacks utilizing Dark Mana.”
“A surprise attack using large-scale Mana puzzle reassembly.”
“Nuclear bomb bombardments utilizing interdimensional knowledge.”
“Artificial Mana disaster terror.”
“Forced repetition of function judgment using the World Tree.”
“Instantaneous Mana interference abilities using the seizure of the domain.”
Each of them is powerful.
Basically, the director excels at large army attacks.
It’s considered a world raid boss level of danger that pierces the heavens.
Having lost allies and regions, the elements that could crumble the turn are countless.
But before experiencing it, I noticed.
Those who would fight in my place are waiting behind me, even if it means risking their lives.
“Your deaths won’t be in vain.”
“We will make it so.”
“At the cost of this life!”
The agile all-ins quickly closed the distance from three sides, and the director’s domain quickly began to shred the surrounding space.
Woosh
Vroom
Whoosh
Teleport
Swift
Hyper Speed
Accelerate
Super Acceleration
The form wrapped in Mana of the same nature as the main body spread quickly in all directions, showcasing simultaneous movements where reality and illusion couldn’t be distinguished.
Some even charged towards the director, closing the gaps.
The director’s characteristic area attack, which had only forced others to exhaust themselves, faced the risk of involving even itself due to the frightening rush speed, leading to a shutdown of the ability deployment.
“Movement comparable to the continent’s top thieves. Truly, this is bothersome.”
The director’s terrifying area attack issued forth as a wave, obliterating the clones approaching them one after another.
As the scattered forms fell apart, the area that sought to destroy the incoming forms realized something and quickly came to a halt.
“I’ll close the gap at the cost of an arm. Isn’t that a good trade?”
“…!”
Among the scattering clones, one body that naturally offered an arm and fell like a clone dashed towards the director.
The single strike extended faster than the returning speed of the domain and slashed the director’s neck.
Crack!
Vroom – Dimensional Barrier
A dagger caught in the space’s gap broke right in front of the director’s neck.
A face filled with despair was immediately crushed along with the already deployed Ether dimension.
But what followed was the joint attack from the remaining two Agility All-ins.
Their infiltration, having traversed every kind of evasion ability, allowed no room for the director to redistribute power or rest.
“If you truly want to experience my tricks, then I’ll send you to the netherworld as you wish.”
Simultaneously, two of the director’s domains unfolded.
Domain of Control
Playground Domain
The domain of control, which can dominate and distort all Mana techniques at will.
The playground domain, which can dominate and distort all emotions at will.
The moment the two domains intertwined, the two Agile All-ins recalled the fate that awaited them.
– After all, it’s impossible with this build. If I have to throw my life to block an attack I could’ve dodged, then what’s the point of raising my evasion…
– Still, I see a possibility. If I had enough stamina to withstand any attack, if my mental power could bear all the attacks until the enemy’s Mana runs out, today’s failure could turn into tomorrow’s success!
In moments where they met their ends while taking attacks they could dodge.
Stirred by memories and emotions of those moments, the Agility All-ins threw themselves into the director’s catastrophic combo.
“There’s still a new pattern.”
“That’s why warriors are hopeless.”
“DPS trumps all!”
Three [Mana All-in Magic Burst Mages] began to unleash the grand magic they had amassed during the short time gained by the Agility All-ins sacrificing their lives.
The collisions of grand magic aimed to prompt more Mana to clash and cancel each other out.
The goal was clear.
To create a Mana void that couldn’t be dominated by even a handful of Mana.
No matter how massive the Mana disaster would follow as recoil, they would eradicate the director,
More.
Just a bit more.
They couldn’t stop; they had to keep firing.
They could never allow themselves to stop against a monstrous strong enemy, not even for a moment!
The Mana circuits screamed as their bodies surged with power, twisting their blood vessels, yet the Mana All-ins let out not a single moan of pain.
Cough cough. Don’t you see yet? Whenever you deal with a divine artifact that surpasses human strength, there’s always a divine trap that follows…
Mana All-in. The divine artifact we relied on was merely a trap set by the gods to sow despair amongst humans, and in this painful world, what remains?
Did our fight even have true meaning?
More powerful spells.
Magic, by magic, using only magic as a strategy.
The end that sat at the end held both powerful weapons capable of evaporating chapter bosses and traps that could hasten the world’s destruction.
Human magic has always had limits.
The path of magic cannot surpass the stronghold of Dragon Principal Omoshiroi, and even with borrowed power, it leads to dead ends and clear, wrong answers marked by the gods’ bad endings.
“Still, it wasn’t for nothing.”
“All the failures we’ve faced, all the struggles.”
“Now, they have become this grand magic we use.”
The domain of control and the playground domain.
Facing the overwhelming grand magic bombardment that neither could surpass a certain range, even the mighty director couldn’t move an inch.
As the dimensional Mana that intruded through the formed gaps triggered disasters, tearing the space and inflicting collateral damage, a pattern of even the worst world raid boss was erased without any aid from miracles or divine artifacts.
The history of failure.
Records of defeat.
In return for the achievements brought by long-standing frustrations that couldn’t possibly blend into the Middle Realm, a cool one-hundred-dimensional elemental Mana suddenly absorbed into the director.
Ancestral Symbiosis – Blood Vampire
Ancestral Symbiosis – Pureblood Lycanthrope
Ancestral Symbiosis – Dragonic Blood of Draconia
Heh heh. To push me to the point of blooming the blood of kings I’ve gathered from behind the Beastman Resurgence Society, truly, an avatar is unreasonable. I envy your convenient power so much, so won’t you share just a little with me?
The Foundation has utilized powers from other dimensions that aimed to collect countless taboos and mysteries over its long history to turn the Middle Realm into a colonial dimension.
How much power did the director, who ascended to the pinnacle of the Foundation by subduing the leader of the organization, possess?
━━━
Disaster-level Mind Controller
━━━
The director, who had deployed their power, was startled as the energy streamed from their hands was quickly lost.
“Linked skills will be blocked if their activation is stolen.”
“You’re telling me that it’s impossible to connect magic with unknown functionality while honing every extraneous function in the world.”
“You’ll never surpass us, you who fall behind in pure combat efficiency.”
With the mystical force that had manifest barely after summoning not participating in the battlefield, combined with the timely ambush from the [Intelligence All-in Cheats] waiting at the sidelines, the grand magic continually gnawed at the ancestral powers of the director.
“Haha! Now this is what qualifies someone to claim to be the avatar from beyond!”
━━━
Rapid activation of mental corruption – Intention Bomb
━━━
The director’s twisted spell shape completely deviated from the structured patterns of modern techniques, forming a haphazard stack that followed ancient inefficient and absurd runes, now barely clinging to existence.
The Judgement Trick of the player’s incarnation of the Intelligence All-in series, who had always chased the best path, best choices, and strongest conclusions, couldn’t obstruct the director’s intention bomb.
Boom!
The [Divine Punishment] that beings face when confronting the divine.
The sheer gravity of being collapsed under a being of such enormous power squeezed the mortal soul and thrust it into the abyss of torment.
While the Mana All-in series already pressed to their limits by the magic burst met their ends, the Intelligence All-in series who aimed to plunder judgment began writhing in agony and collapsing.
“Self, how is this? I am the one who has accumulated the long-hidden mysteries of humanity; I am the very history of the Middle Realm that has been invaded and oppressed by countless dimensions. Can the avatars from a distant future hope to surpass the history, which has connected the ancient to the modern?”
The Demon King Oknodie, who stared blankly at all the horrors with a triangular eye, stifled a grin at Papa’s ironic yet unhidden tension.
“That force of history, I hope you use it up quickly before the next wave starts.”
Twelve summoning circles began to glow as they began to absorb the forces of all the fallen avatars.
Only then did the director feel the presence of avatars competing to emerge from beyond the summoning circle, their massive powers clashing.
The director’s forced smile began to tremble rapidly.
“Who did you inherit such a monstrous build from? I simply cannot fathom this Papa.”
“Seems so. It’s not like I learned from some weakling like you.”
Demon King Oknodie.
Her strategy couldn’t begin with the demise of the avatars.
They had to defeat Demon King Oknodie herself while ignoring the endless avatars that continued to appear.
The heinous nature of the pattern.
The malice of experience and build.
Before a selfish veteran player’s build that knows no limits, even the director has to relinquish the title of the most formidable.
