Observing the opponent, estimating how they’ll move, looking for a gap.
There was no such thing.
Yu Jitae ran in and swung [Conviction of Ancient Soldier].
Kwaangg–!
The Sword Ghost blocked it resulting in massive sparks. As their fight began, Yu Jitae was made to look into its disgusting face.
With the astonishing strength fitting an S+ mid-boss, the Sword Ghost pushed his sword away. Despite being a regressor living his fourth life, he was helplessly pushed back.
It didn’t give him any chance to restabilise and immediately ran in. The sword half mingled with darkness had an unpredictable length and range to the weapon. He thought he blocked it, but the darkness embedded within the sword flowed down before scratching Yu Jitae’s neck like the claws of a beast. His powerful physique was torn apart.
Parrying the sword, Yu Jitae tried to decapitate its head. However, the Sword Ghost’s lower body turned into a dark mist and immediately distanced itself. The [Conviction of Ancient Soldier] ended up slashing nothing but thin air.
Its movements were mysterious and due to its unpredictable nature, the Sword Ghost was already in the air above him before his eyes could follow it.
After a turn in the air, the Ghost slashed down with its sword. Even the trajectory of the sword was extraordinary.
If he were to try to block it he could, but should he?
If he were to try to dodge it he could, but should he?
Or else…
Quickly making a judgement, he stabbed the sword whilst blocking the opponent’s sword at the same time. The Sword Ghost’s sword which he couldn’t fully parry swept past his shoulder and his left shoulder muscles screamed out in pain.
Nonetheless, the attack was effective. [Conviction of Ancient Soldier] had stabbed one of the eyes of the Sword Ghost.
However, that became a problem. Since its eyes were hollow in the first place, it didn’t damage the Ghost and instead, the sword was stuck inside its skull. To the monster, its head was not a weak point.
He tried to pull the sword away, but the Sword Ghost utilised its mysterious movements again and didn’t allow him to create a distance.
That was when the surrounding forest moved in a timely manner and began slashing him like a wave of swords. Hundreds of blades scraped past his entire body as pain erupted all around. His left arm lost its sense of touch.
Because of that, his mana flow became slightly slower.
The mana soaring from his heart travelled across his upper body, through the ripped shoulders, arms and wrists, before eventually gathering at the tip of his sword.
[Sword of Giant Soldier (AA) – 7th Form]
[Obliterate]
Yu Jitae struck the ground with his sword. It created an immense explosion and fragments of sharp mana scattered everywhere, taking the blades with them. Everything within ten metres from him were all crushed including the metal trees.
The Sword Ghost hastily distanced itself.
“…”
While bleeding from his entire body, Yu Jitae bit his lips. His breaths were short.
After reaching a certain level, superhumans were able to estimate their opponent’s power level. Yu Jitae predicted that the Sword Ghost was weaker than himself. However, it had a profound understanding of swordplay and the landscape was negatively impacting him.
He thought to himself.
If he were to destroy all the trees nearby one by one, he would be able to remove the landscape. He could fight with more leisure and figure out the weakness and common habits of the opponent.
If he so wished, he could use all his leftover power to immediately kill the Sword Ghost.
However, he didn’t do so.
He had no time to waste destroying trees and observing the opponent. And the road was still too long for him to use all his power here.
Because of that, he had to kill the Sword Ghost with the least amount of power necessary, within the least amount of time.
It was easier said than done.
Yu Jitae took a deep breath in.
Time and power. Catching two birds was excessive greed and there would definitely be a negative side result following such greed. Wishing for his body to be safe on top of saving both time and power was him being overly greedy and the Regressor was aware of that.
In any case, he just had to stay alive.
Choosing from the best of the best, he used the most suitable authority he had.
[Seven-headed Dragonification (S-)]
It was an authority he gained by killing a boss of a hidden dungeon at the start of the fourth iteration. At the same time, it was the authority which had been in the hands of Oscar Brzenk, the official Rank 1 worldwide in the third iteration.
[Pure Blood]
His heart began pumping blue blood. His entire body began sensing every single thing surrounding him.
The sense of sight allowed him to look further and deeper, and everything hazy became clear.
The sense of smell made him smell the odour of mold and moss behind the dense odour of blood and corpse of the Sword Forest.
And strange feelings that couldn’t be felt until now were being sent to the brain. This was what was referred to as ‘sixth sense’. With this, he would be able to instinctively distinguish between attacks that had to be avoided and those that could be allowed.
“…”
He just had to not die. Yu Jitae moved his body.
After exactly 1 minute; after 50 exchanges,
Slash–
[Conviction of Ancient Soldier] ripped through the Sword Ghost’s heart.
“—”
It murmured something even after falling down, so he crushed it beneath his feet.
This was the end.
However, it wasn’t a clean victory. By the time he left the Sword Forest, Yu Jitae’s body had countless swords popping out like an echidna.
Once he left the forest encroached in darkness, a comparatively brighter forest welcomed him.
He forced those swords out one by one. His entire body ached as if it was on fire and his skin and muscles screamed out in pain.
It was painful.
For the first time in a very long time, he sincerely thought to himself that it was painful. His muscles and joints felt disjointed. A rest of one or two days would not be enough to fully cure his broken body.
Drip–
When he pulled out the blades that were clogging up his vessels, blood raced out like a broken dam.
He took an elixir out from his dimensional storage and rubbed it randomly onto his body and swallowed the rest. Because of the sheer mana capacity of his body, he couldn’t expect a full recovery on his mana but it could help him restore all the lost blood at least.
“…”
Only a half of the front was visible.
Yu Jitae touched his eyes. His entire body was full of blood but there was something more gooey next to his eyes. It seemed that some fluids had come out from his ripped eyeball.
He once again examined his body.
Fortunately, none of the wounds were fatal. It was thanks to his sixth sense allowing him to notice attacks that had to be dodged.
Thanks to all that, he wasn’t too far off from the Gold Dragon.
Yet again, he moved forward.
***
Some time in the distant past, Yu Jitae was a human.
An extremely ordinary human. In fact, he was slightly less talented than others.
From a young age, he wanted to be stronger. But after his body was controlled like a puppet in the second iteration and was made to murder his lover with his two hands, he became more desperate.
The third iteration was him living every single day, simply to become stronger than the day before. He practically buried himself and dedicated all his time in dungeons for over 20 years and lived with his life constantly on the line.
He was such a normal human,
Who had lost many things from the third iteration.
After reaching the fourth iteration, Yu Jitae became a human who was extremely distant from common sense. Simply put, he was a psychopath.
What the Gold Dragon was thinking and the psychology behind her life had nothing to do with him. Isn’t it fine as long as she didn’t die no matter what? That was the only thought he had in mind.
And when the Gold Dragon was abducted like this, powerlessly beyond his control, he had to feel the same emotions he felt at the start of the third iteration. Despite trying desperately to become stronger, he was still this weak.
In order to stop the Apocalypse, he had to become stronger. That’s what he thought back then.
He went on for three days and nights.
He came across monsters and either killed them or broke past them.
During the sprint, the Regressor did not think about the Gold Dragon at all. He merely blamed and reprimanded himself.
The third iteration was truly garbage.
BM, Myung Yongha and even Yong Jungkook, the current family head of the Yong household – whoever it was, the gifted ones were always either as strong as him or stronger than him.
He fought fiercely. Vomiting blood, he sacrificed his flesh and crushed his bones wishing to become stronger. When he was stuck inside a monster’s mouth; his body broken by the teeth and smothered by its saliva, he would fight back by ripping its tongue.
When his wrists broke on top of his sword, he would crunch the neck of the monsters with his teeth and kill them before they did.
When his legs were broken and his lower body paralysed, he would hold onto the horns of the beast and dig his fingers into its eyes.
Even then, he was weak. Thinking about all that, the Regressor felt something dark like the head of a black monster wriggling within his heart. It was stuck in his throat.
Upon closer inspection, it was similar to self-hatred. The feeling he hadn’t felt for the last 10 years was rearing its ugly head back up and made him feel like he would go insane.
That was when he received a message.
– Sir. This place… restricted entry…, …
By comparing this dungeon’s size to China, it could be said that he had crossed 80% of the country over four days and nights. At this point, he was closer to the boss monster’s lair than the encampment, and communication became harder as he went further in.
– … Please… take care…
He thus turned the device off.
This place was the front line. And he felt the trace of the Gold Dragon from a place not too far from here. The dragon had stopped at that place from yesterday.
However, there were soldiers stopping him from entering when he arrived at the frontline.
“Stop there please!”
A man and two women. Hanging on their chest was a brooch of a golden bull, with strange horns resembling weapons.
Vanguard ST.
They were the frontline squad under the International Hunter Association. At the same time, they were in the lead at creating the path from the front line to the heart of the dungeon, with every agent being at least in the top ten thousand.
“We have received a note from the command centre. Our Commander especially wished for us to take care of you and we do understand that you are a great superhuman.”
“…”
“However, we do not know what sort of danger there is beyond this place. Please listen to our orders hereon and tread carefully. Although we do not know where you wish to go to, we cannot allow anyone to move privately beyond this area.”
Yu Jitae thought to himself.
The ‘standard moving distance’ of the shock troop was 150km. But the encampment of the shock troop, Vanguard ST, should be 220km to the East from this place.
In other words, it was highly likely that this group of soldiers were scouts.
There was a clear limit on the distance that could be travelled with communication devices. It was the same as how the device provided by Myung Yongha could not reach his current location.
And the ‘standard moving distance’ was the same as the distance coverable by the communication device.
“…Okay.”
So if he were to kill them here.
“Let’s first go back to our camp.”
No-one will know.
“This way please.”
And the Regressor did not want to waste time.
“…!”
Slash–
He swung his sword as the man’s head dropped and rolled on the floor. Immediately, the other two women struck back.
One of the women drove a sword in through his rib cage. The strike was so fierce that the forest and trees behind him were caught in the aftershock. However, he did not die. Although it was close to the heart, it had barely missed it.
He decapitated the woman. Meanwhile, the other side instinctively shot an arrow at him. Dozens of arrows dug into his muscles and joints and soon they exploded and caused his body to stiffen.
However, that wasn’t enough to fully stop his movements. The moment his body was able to move again, he approached the woman and took her bow. He then threw the woman to the ground. Her neck was broken as a yell left her mouth.
Superhumans did not die just from having their neck bones broken. Yu Jitae crushed her neck with his trembling hands.
“Ukk… Kuhuk…”
The opponent grabbed onto his wrists in an attempt to pull them away. Her sharp nails ripped his wrist but also broke her own nails.
Her frightened eyes were staring at him, but he didn’t think much of it. But at least, his head that was about to go insane was slowly going back to normal.
His current decision was efficient. As if to prove that, the woman’s body soon stopped and they turned quiet.
Even if his life was short,
Isn’t it fine if it is as efficient as possible.
Consoling himself with that thought, the Regressor lifted his body.
The corpses were all scorched behind him.
***
When Yu Jitae finally came across Baby Yellow’s presence, she was inside a cave at the very end of a mountain range.
Although the battered man stumbled forward, there weren’t any signs. Being cautious of an ambush from the demons, he carefully walked forward with his hand tracing the wall.
But for some strange reason, he… couldn’t feel any demonic presence.
“…”
All he found there was a large monster.
There were gold scales covering its body, with strong tendons and muscles in the front and back legs. If it were to fully expand its large wings, they would be able to cover any random building.
Its gaze overflowed with dignity and the sheer difference of class in their existence itself was enough to oppress Yu Jitae.
There, was a gold dragon.
Yu Jitae opened his mouth with a sigh.
“You need to get scolded.”