Chapter 318: Episode 318

Order magic inherently transforms into an entirely new kind of magic each time a new order or process is added to its ecosystem.

It goes without saying that the difficulty of constructing it increases exponentially with each addition.

What I had just learned was the eighth-order—a monumental magic that seamlessly merged a staggering eight distinct ecosystems.

Because the eighth-order couldn’t possibly handle balancing all eight simultaneously, it abandoned the concept of maintaining a structured ecosystem altogether.

It was a series of pure irrationalities, indiscriminately mixed together. Horrifyingly complex and entirely impossible to reduce into a neat equation or logical system. But once truly understood, the complexity vanished.

This was the foundation of the ’Chaos’ Anton had spoken of.

It was entirely different from the creation of the seventh-order.

If standard creation was simply making something that already existed within this world, then Chaos was forging something that fundamentally did not belong to this world.

In other words, it was the absolute power to create—or destroy—another world.

I sprang up from the floor. Conjuring a piece of mana chalk, I gripped it tightly and immediately began drawing the chaotic formulas of the eighth-order onto the wall, burning the imprints from my mind into reality.

Every time the chalk dragged across the stone, it left behind vivid, glowing blue marks.

I wrote down the sprawling formulas without a single moment of hesitation.

My heart pounded wildly against my ribs. Breathless laughter bubbled up out of my throat, making me sound like a complete madman.

My arm rode the manic momentum, moving as if possessed. Two arms weren’t nearly enough for the sheer volume of output I needed. Times like this genuinely made me wish I had ten.

For the first time in a long while, I slipped into a state of absolute over-immersion, completely losing track of time, space, and my own physical limits.

By the time I finally came to my senses…

“…Yusin?”

Jin Bora’s voice pulled me from my trance. Only as I blinked at her did I realize I had stayed up the entire night.

Ugh.

A heavy wave of dizziness belatedly washed over my exhausted brain.

“Yusin!”

Jin Bora ran over, grabbing my arm to keep me steady.

“I swear, you’re going to be the death of me! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m fine.”

“What in the world is all this?”

Jin Bora’s eyes widened, her pupils trembling as she surveyed our surroundings. Taking a step back, I finally looked around the room myself.

Chaotic formulas drawn in glowing mana chalk covered almost every single wall on the seventh floor. At some point during the night, using just my two physical arms had felt far too stifling, so I had utilized remote casting to control ten pieces of chalk simultaneously.

As a result, the room looked like the den of a lunatic. Every conceivable surface was filled to the brim with glowing, interconnected equations.

“This is the key to overcoming the eighth floor’s trial,” I breathed. “And…”

I flashed a wide, exhausted grin at Jin Bora.

“It’s the core component we need to conquer Nemesis.”

I delivered the revelation with absolute confidence, but the only response I got was a long, beleaguered sigh.

“Nemesis is all well and good, but you need to sleep first. What’s the point if you drop dead from exhaustion before the world even ends?”

Jin Bora continued, still eyeing the glowing walls with disbelief.

“Ea, you really need to step in and stop him when he gets hyper-fixated like this.”

“I could not stop him.”

Ea descended from the air, materializing in a soft cluster of light.

“The Master was in the midst of achieving a profound enlightenment to reach the eighth-order. If I had interrupted him, it might have taken him years to grasp that realization again.”

“…You two really seem to be taking after each other more and more,” Bora muttered.

I let out a weak laugh, pushing myself fully upright.

“Then I’ll challenge the trial again tomorrow. Ea, make sure to capture an image of every single one of these formulas.”

“Understood.”

*

The very next day arrived.

Without dragging things out any longer than necessary, it was finally time for the decisive battle.

[You must pass the trial to advance to the next floor.]

[Would you like to challenge the trial?]

“I will challenge it.”

I passed through the veil of darkness once more and arrived back at the desolate ruins.

Having rested properly for a full twenty-four hours, my body and mind were in peak condition. I drew up my magic power.

<Kim Yusin Original – Deformation Meister>

First, I activated Meister, scattering a storm of brilliant blue feathers around me. As the feathers struck the stone floor, they rapidly began forming the eighth-order magic circle.

This was going to be a battle of speed.

The illusion of Yeon would arrive within three minutes. I had to finish the setup before then.

The eighth-order magic circle looked fundamentally different from any conventional array. Instead of neat, geometrically connected formulas and magic circuits, it possessed a messy, dizzyingly chaotic appearance. The formulas were violently tangled together, overlapping like a madman’s scribbles.

I took a deep, steadying breath and looked straight ahead into the gloom.

Rhythmic footsteps echoed from the darkness.

My heart hammered against my ribs with thick tension. The primal fear of death—painfully ingrained into me from several brutal, repeated lessons—writhed in my chest, threatening to consume my focus.

-Master. It is complete.

Good.

Without a second of hesitation, I activated the magic. A massive barrier instantly unfolded from the center of the array, completely enveloping me and the surrounding terrain.

At the exact same moment, Yeon emerged from the shadows.

…That was close.

She eyed the shimmering barrier surrounding me with an icy, calculating gaze.

“You use a strange power. Are you Nemesis?”

I didn’t offer her an answer. Seeing my silence, she smoothly lowered into a combat stance.

“It doesn’t matter. Once you disappear, everything ends.”

The second she drew her sword, a perfectly straight, blindingly fast slash flew directly toward me.

It was the exact same technique that had ruthlessly pierced my heart and sent my head flying into the dirt numerous times. A densely layered projection of her Scarlet Flare that could tear through absolutely any defensive magic.

But this time…

It works!

This time, I successfully blocked it.

No, to be precise, I let it slip right past me.

The devastating slash that struck my barrier simply phased straight through the energy and harmlessly out the back.

This wasn’t merely a structural concept like a physical shield. Yeon and I were standing face-to-face, but strictly speaking, we were now occupying completely different worlds.

Because the power she unleashed in her world couldn’t physically interfere with the laws of my world, her attack had bypassed me completely.

She glared at me, her eyes widening in genuine shock.

“Now, don’t chicken out. Come at me!”

I rapidly expanded the customized universe enveloping me. The barrier swelled outward in an instant, aggressively swallowing her up.

She squeezed her eyes shut, clearly bracing for a magical impact, but she wouldn’t have felt any physical resistance at all.

Slowly opening her eyes, she examined her new surroundings.

We were now standing on a pristine white sandy beach. The ocean rolled in with a rhythmic, rushing sound, and tall palm trees swayed lazily in the coastal wind. A picture-perfect tropical landscape.

“Peaceful, isn’t it?” I asked, spreading my arms wide to gesture at the illusion. “Welcome to my world.”

She readjusted her grip on her hilt and glared at me.

And for the first time in this trial, I was finally feeling it.

She was no longer receiving the absolute protection of the trial’s world. Furthermore, my own magic power was no longer being forcefully dragged out of my body and into hers.

That meant only one thing.

<Amplification Circle> ×30

<Acceleration Circle> ×30

It meant that I was finally free to use my full, unbridled strength as well.

From the countless interlocking magic circles spread out before me, a merciless storm of feathers rained down on her like a shower of blinding flashes.

She swung her sword in a blur to deflect the projectiles. The sight of countless red slashes blooming in the air was a display of movement so close to absolute mastery, it was unmistakably identical to the real Yeon.

However—

A hardened feather lodged deep into her thigh.

Two more embedded themselves viciously into her shoulder and abdomen. Her complexion instantly grew pale.

Something feels a bit strange, doesn’t it?

This was my world. Strictly speaking, I was the absolute creator of this physical space.

The primary rule of the world I had just established was simple: the gravity in this space was continuously, unpredictably shifting.

A swordsman’s true strength is essentially karma—muscle memory built through countless hours of grueling training and repeated combat experience.

However, just as swinging a sword on solid land and swinging it deep underwater are on completely different levels, martial artists are highly vulnerable to sudden, radical changes in their physical environment.

Although Yeon’s unique adaptability was notoriously tricky to deal with, I was wildly altering the gravity in the arena by the second, constantly throwing off her center of balance.

Once I became more proficient with the eighth-order, I’d be able to insert far more complex conditions. For now, this shifting gravity was nothing more than a cheap parlor trick. Nevertheless, against a hyper-tuned physical opponent like Yeon, it was lethally effective.

More and more conjured feathers dug past her guard, and bright red blood rapidly began seeping through her combat suit.

“Ugh!”

Eventually, she surged her magic power, forcefully emitting her Scarlet Flare in the shape of a swirling tornado to violently deflect the incoming barrage.

A massive blunder on her part. In this closed space, even if she used her power recklessly like she usually did, her mana reserves wouldn’t naturally replenish from the environment.

I could win this fight simply by baiting her into continuously burning through her aura with that technique.

Perhaps noticing her rapidly depleting mana, Yeon quickly slipped out of the bombardment zone while her defensive tornado was still maintained. A moment later, she was full-on sprinting, accelerating in a wide circle around me at a terrifying speed.

I calmly tracked her blurred movements using the Deva’s Eye.

“Haaaaah!”

Crashing into my immediate space in a fraction of a split second, she brought her glowing sword down in a brutal vertical cleave.

I dodged the lethal strike by lightly twisting my shoulder. I evaded her frantic, subsequent slashes by merely tilting my head back and shifting my footing. With every miss, Yeon’s expression grew increasingly strained.

Normally, even seeing—let alone dodging—her blade would be near impossible for me.

But I was constantly shifting the gravity and the density of the air resistance applied directly to her body in this world. Even mid-swing, her sword’s heavy trajectory was forced to change multiple times, slowing her down just enough.

This feels incredible.

Going from a world where I was at a crippling disadvantage to a tailored world where I held an overwhelming, god-like advantage… everything had suddenly become so much easier.

I effortlessly dodged another swinging blade, then reached out and snatched her pale wrist mid-air.

“These robes happen to be incredibly high-performance,” I noted.

The flowing fabric of my blue robes, entirely composed of Meister’s raw power, shot forward. They viciously bound her sword wrist and pinned the rest of her limbs flat against the sandy floor.

I took a casual step back as Yeon struggled with all her terrifying might, desperately trying to break free from the magical bindings.

I immediately activated my Wing Golem and launched myself straight up into the artificial sky at top speed.

Down in my shadow, Ea finished loading the complex magic circle she had been prepping within the Specter. The next spell queued up was a devastating Earth-attribute seventh-order.

<Ragnarok>

Pinned to the ground, Yeon glanced up behind her, her vivid red hair fluttering in the sudden gale.

The ground literally rose up beneath her. It couldn’t even be called a mere seismic upheaval.

The very crust of the earth was physically folding upward upon itself, as if the space of the world had completely distorted. Just turning my head, I could see land, sea, and tropical forest all bending toward the sky.

I clenched my fists tightly, seizing control of the spell.

The massive chunks of ground rising from the left and right aggressively rolled up into a colossal sphere, overtaking the sky of my artificial world before converging straight toward the center point—where she lay.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

The terrain formed into a massive, inescapable sphere of compressed earth, effectively trapping her deep inside its core. With cold precision, I twisted my clenched fist sideways.

Crrrack!

The colossal Earth sphere’s size was violently halved in mere seconds. The horrifying, crushing pressure of a collapsing world would be transferred directly onto Yeon’s body.

I ruthlessly continued to apply pressure. The earth sphere shrank with sickening crunching sounds, rapidly reducing to a third of its original size. Pulverized sand and rock rained down to the vacant floor like dust.

This is seriously draining.

I exhaled a sharp breath as I lowered my aching arm. But just then, a blinding, furious red light began seeping out through the cracks of the crushed earth sphere.

BOOM!

Violently demolishing her earthly prison, Yeon shot out like a cannonball. She was using her condensed Scarlet Flare as a literal rocket booster to rush me in the sky.

In response, I maximized the Wing Golem’s speed to quickly widen the vertical distance between us. At the same time, I materialized an almost infinite swarm of first-order Rapid Arrows, firing them down at her all at once.

Her protective combat suit was already destroyed. If she wanted to prevent the razor-sharp magical arrows from lodging into her bare skin, she had no choice but to envelop her entire body in her Scarlet Flare. And if she wanted to catch up to me in the sky, she had to continuously burn through those same reserves to fly.

The Scarlet Flare was an incredibly powerful innate ability, but it suffered from exceptionally poor mana efficiency. That wouldn’t have been a problem for her under normal circumstances, but this was my world. She couldn’t absorb a single drop of mana from it.

In other words, my entire grand strategy against the invincible Yeon could be boiled down to just two simple directives.

Avoid a head-on confrontation at all costs.

And slowly, methodically, bleed her completely dry.

But even as a fake, Hong Yeon was still Hong Yeon.

I spent the entire fight running, barely surviving the lethal arcs of her ranged sword strikes. If I hadn’t manipulated the natural laws governing her body—crushing her with gravity and drastically increasing air resistance—I would have been the one bleeding out in the dirt.

At the end of that long, desperate game of hide-and-seek.

Silence hung heavily in the air.

The strategy succeeded. Hong Yeon was kneeling with her sword planted firmly in the ground, panting heavily.

This is seriously absurd.

Despite how it might look, I was someone who had fought and won against three officially recognized 1st-class hunters at once. Yet, I couldn’t even dare to face Hong Yeon head-on.

Even though she was a fake.

Even though I had dragged her into my own world, this was the result.

I had to admit it.

She was simply stronger than me.

Raw power didn’t always dictate victory or defeat, but the reality was undeniable.

I’m sorry.

I raised my index finger.

An Earth Claymore surged from the ground, piercing straight through her heart.

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