Chapter 33
1.
Sunming said nothing.
As if no reason was needed for a fight between two males.
A massive, bear-like body closed the distance in an instant.
The hammer was drawn back over his head so hard it nearly touched his own ankle, like pounding rice cakes.
A distance of 25 meters disappeared in a single leap.
In less than a second, the booster-loaded, Sunming-special squeaky hammer would crunch my cervical spine by about three centimeters.
But.
His big movements left his stomach wide open.
My mana circuits were running hot, the hand sign was set, and the spell was loaded.
“Goodbye, Sunming.”
You, strongest of the men I know.
-Shwaak
A narrow, half-moon slash thick with mana, sticky as oil, shot toward Sunming's abdomen.
Death Sentence.
A spell that declares the imagined cause of death upon a target touched by refined mana.
I vividly pictured Sunming being sliced apart.
Now all that was left was for Sunming to become a Heat-Hunt popsicle....
“This fucking bullshit.”
I hastily dodged the hammer falling from above my head.
-Kwaaaang!!!!
A deafening blast erupted.
The instant the hammer slammed into the spot where I'd been standing, the mercury lamps affected by the shock all flickered.
Tiles shattered and scattered like shotgun pellets, and the old dust on the tunnel walls surged up all at once.
“Hnnngh!!!!”
The hammer that had smashed into the floor reignited.
After the vertical smash, a horizontal strike followed with almost no interval.
The whole sequence was unnaturally fast, like a video played at double speed.
-Whoooosh!!!
The ripping sound of air being torn apart skimmed dangerously past my face.
If I hadn't awakened my mana and gained physical abilities comparable to Level 1 augmentation, even Laplace's Eye wouldn't have helped.
Using the sway of that momentum, I backflipped again and again to put some distance between us.
“Sunming, as expected, you're strong.”
A smile I couldn't suppress tugged at the corners of my mouth.
Yeah, my rival couldn't go down so easily.
I've still got a lot more to show.
“You fucking bastard… How did you break my body-protection charm in one hit….”
Sunming hurriedly rubbed his generously bulging belly.
The turtle embroidery on his blue changpao blurred, then disappeared.
“You fucking bitch, do you know how much this cost?”
So it wasn't ordinary clothing.
A Level 2 enhancement wasn't enough, and he had an artifact like that too?
This bastard's only Rank 7, yet suspiciously rich.
But now he didn't even have an item left to protect his body.
So, what are you going to do now?
-Crunch
Sunming pulled out a glass ampoule, shoved the whole thing into his mouth, and chewed it up.
I stared wide-eyed.
No, wait, wait, wait. Look at this fucking bastard?
“Hey, you petty bastard!!!! You're doing drugs in the octagon of honorable warriors?”
I can't hide my disappointment!
I can't believe the strongest Rank 7, Sunming, was a roid freak!
“I'm furious that I ever thought of a coward like you as my rival!!!!”
“Huff…. What are you even talking about? You fucking weakling.”
The amount of steam rolling off drugged-up Sunming doubled.
The steam puffing out through his teeth doubled too, and his bloodshot eyes burned twice as red.
“I'll turn you into minced meat and sell you at Hongshen Market.”
“You cowardly druggie bastard. You're like Jon Jones!”
I suppressed my surging anger and prepared my spell.
The first spell Ceres ever taught me: Death Sentence.
After that, over about two days, I tested it in various ways and learned a few things.
One.
You can use it even without sending mana through a fixed circuit.
Like a fighting game with forgiving inputs, it'll still come out if your timing's roughly right.
Two.
Mama Ceres said routine was important, but when I actually tried it, I found I didn't really need hand signs or incantations.
Three.
And this was the most important part.
Death Sentence didn't need to be fired one by one.
-Bang!
An explosive leap. Sunming lunged at me.
Having realized my attack was long-range focused, he moved with that Sandevistan-like burst he'd shown before.
That was the beastlike rush he'd shown when he charged in, shrugging off every bullet.
I opened the Death Sentences I'd pictured in my mind all at once, like releasing a taut bowstring.
“Die like a bug, Sunming. You're permanently out of the game.”
If it were bullets, he could probably dodge them while closing in.
But this wasn't an attack of points, it was an attack of lines.
A straight line from the crown of the head to the groin.
A straight line from the collarbone to the abdomen.
A straight line slashing diagonally from shoulder to thigh.
A straight line cutting from the temple to the lower jaw.
A straight line going in through the waist, severing the spine, and coming back out.
The deathly straight lines formed by black mana were fired densely at Sunming.
Just as the Sunming cube was about to be complete, as if he'd been fed into a shredder.
“What the hell are you talking about!!!!”
-Tsssssshh!!!
Steam burst out, and Sunming began moving with insane afterimages.
He dodged by threading through the spaces between nearly nonexistent lines, through minuscule slivers of time.
Acrobatic movements that were hard to believe could come from such a hefty body.
Even Cedric himself was stunned.
His miraculous movements sent chills down my spine, and admiration welled up despite myself.
Fuck, that bastard.
No matter how I looked at it, he didn't seem like a Rank 7.
“You bastard! You'd be amazing at dodgeball!”
However, my Death Sentence didn't end there.
Maybe because Death Sentence is a zero-tier spell, the amount of mana it needs is small.
At the very least, it wasn't a cost I really felt.
In other words.
“I can do this all day.”
-Shwaak shwaak shwaak shwaak shwaak
I unleashed even more Death Sentences on Sunming.
After all, Sunming was focused entirely on evasion, so he couldn't get close to me.
Dozens of 'lines' rained down on Sunming one after another.
“Huff! Huff! Huff!”
Sunming's breathing grew more and more ragged.
Blood droplets scattered through the air with each ragged breath.
I didn't know what drug he'd taken, but enhancement is ultimately a counterfeit etched into an artificial circuit.
It's an overclock that pushes past the component's limits.
The more you use it, the faster it eats away at your life.
If I just keep this stalemate going, I'll be the one smiling in the end.
But then.
-Paang!
Sunming’s hammer, which had been performing those flashy evasive moves, suddenly smashed a floor tile in an irregular strike.
It was like a golf player lifting a club and taking a full swing.
A blurred fragment floated before my vision.
Tile shards sprayed out like a claymore blast.
-Crunch
My head jerked around.
One side of my vision vanished as if the power had been cut.
As my concentration broke, the Death Sentences rushing toward Sunming scattered.
It felt like half my head had been blown off.
Tile fragments. They hit my eye. Did my eyeball burst? A counterattack like that from this state? Is that Sunming's real combat ability?
No, not now.
“You piece of shit!!!!”
Sunming charged at me, roaring like a lion, not missing the timing.
I forced my half-turned neck back into place.
I forced open my other eye, which wanted to close, and burned his image into it.
Sunming no longer used evasive maneuvers.
As if he meant to settle this in one exchange, he charged straight at me.
His nose and mouth, as he barreled like a bull, were covered in dark red blood.
Even if he was a druggie, it was the residue of a desperate struggle that had burned through his life.
“Dieeeee!!!!”
Sunming's rocket hammer spat fire.
The fingertips of my barely raised hand aimed at the bear-like torso.
Now it was a fight over who was faster.
But my side was marginally faster.
My speed in shaping the spell was greater than Sunming's leap.
Just before the black mana touched Sunming.
I saw the desperate resolve rise in Sunming's eyes.
A ferocity full of stubborn resolve, as if even if his limbs were torn off, he'd still smash my skull before going down.
“You're going down alone.”
-Kkwajik!
Sunming's body was not cut apart.
Instead, he was slammed into the ground with terrifying force.
The ground was etched with spiderweb cracks, as if a human had fallen from hundreds of meters in the air.
The hammer, which had been viciously swinging toward my head, also lost its trajectory and was driven into the floor.
“You bastard! You're a terrifying one, seriously!”
At the very last moment when Death Sentence went off.
Seeing through Sunming's kamikaze strategy, I pictured a different kind of death in my mind.
Sunming's death would be a fall, not a slash.
I wouldn't allow a mutual kill.
“Ugh… kek… kuhk….”
Sunming's limbs were crushed like bugs under a boot. Pinkish innards spilled from his side.
Sunming's eyes, which had been looking up at me in disbelief, blurred over.
The second round was my complete victory.
“Iiii….”
After curling up for a moment….
“You fucking bastard!!!! I'm stronger!!!! I'm the strongest Rank 7!!!”
I gave myself over to the rush of dopamine.
A sport unlike any extreme sport.
A life-and-death duel.
After beating the druggie Sunming fair and square, adrenaline and Red Bull were bursting through my brain's blood vessels.
That ecstasy lasted only a moment.
I clutched my eyes and sank down.
“Agh, fuck! Why is this so damn hard!”
“Mama Ceres! You said Death Sentence alone would make a Rank 7 into paste!”
“You don't even care about the power balance in a scrub fight?”
“Hah, shit… you're playing dirty. How cowardly.”
Somehow, ever since coming to this other world, there hasn't been a single day when my eyes were fine.
I think my eye burst again. I can't open it properly.
At any rate, this wasn't the time for that.
Before anyone could see me, I dragged Sunming off to a secluded corner.
There was a corpse disposal site I'd checked out beforehand.
Of course, before dumping him, I thoroughly searched him and pocketed the fight money.
No matter how hard it is, you take what you're owed.
One 100,000-Bios gold coin, plus about 50,000 Bios in loose change.
One ampoule of the same kind of drug Sunming had been taking.
“You're totally broke, aren't you?”
For all that trouble, it wasn't much.
Still, that wasn't the main purpose.
-Clunk
When I opened the manhole cover, a clearly toxic-looking green liquid was streaming from inside.
That hammer and changpao both looked like they could fetch good money, which was a shame, but….
Right now, clean concealment came first.
-Sploosh
I shoved Sunming and the hammer into it whole.
Poisonous smoke surged up with a sizzling sound.
There were no witnesses.
With that, Sunming evaporated.
Now, if Mama Ceres just pulled the strings behind the scenes….
I'd be handling the dirty-work errand jobs Sunming had been doing for Yiming.
I remembered the time I'd used the alias James Bond in my first loop.
I really never thought I'd actually end up doing spy work.
“Ah….”
Once I relaxed, the pain throbbed even worse.
Am I going to lose my sight like this?
“That won't do!”
I wouldn't be able to fully take in Arbel in a bunny-girl outfit with my own two eyes!
Come to think of it, didn't Ceres poke my eye with a fork and heal me last time?
“Guess I'll have to ask her to blow on it.”
I'd been told to come to Haeng House since I was supposed to get the materials at dawn tomorrow, so I might as well count this as arriving a little early.
Even Ceres has to admit that.
I need to tell her to give me proper intel.
I almost died for real.
I hurried to Haeng House along a route that kept me out of people's sight.
“Don't be surprised. It's me.”
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped into the luxurious foyer.
“My eye's a bit hurt. Could you take a quick look at it….”
The moment I stepped into the living room, blood dripping onto the marble floor….
“……?”
I was left speechless.
“…….”
Because a stranger was standing in Haeng House's spacious living room.
For one thing, she was a woman.
But she wasn't Ceres.
For one thing, she was around 170 centimeters tall, much shorter than Ceres.
Above all, her long silver hair and exquisitely crafted silver eyes were completely unlike Ceres's black-based look.
Here's the problem.
As you know, Ceres absolutely hates having other people brought into her space.
The only times there had been 'another person' in her house in the previous loop were.
Only when Ceres had died.
In other words, based on the information I had, this girl I was facing might be an extremely dangerous person!
That said.
“Excuse me, who are you?”
“Who might you be?”
Somehow, she didn't seem all that scary.
“…Ah, are you Cedric?”
Somehow, she felt familiar.
For some reason, it didn't feel like this was the first time I'd met her.
“Hmm, Mother told me to avoid contact as much as possible, but anyway, come this way. I'll treat your injury.”
“Ah, yes, yes.”
I followed her in a daze, then snapped back to my senses.
“Mother?!”
Mama Ceres! You had a daughter?!?!?!