Flying.
Everyone born in this world must've dread of flying in the infinitely wide expanse at least once.
Only creatures born with wings can fly and move freely in the sky.
I also longed for it when I was young to the point that I could barely rember it.
Of course, after realizing it was a dream that could never co true, I imdiately gave up on it.
However—
Currently, I had acquired wings and flew in the skies of Tokyo.
It was a skill I had used once in the waiting room of the Tower, but the feeling of using it outside was completely different.
The flight in the waiting room was just to see if I could really fly.
The only feeling I had at that ti was that it was just amazing that a lot of mana was consud, and I could fly without flapping my wings a lot.
But now, it was different.
Flying in the skies of Tokyo gave a sense of omnipotence, as if I had truly beco the ruler of the sky.
Honestly, if it weren't for the buildings collapsing with the roaring from all over the place, I would've been laughing out loud.
In fact, I felt the corners of my lips slightly rising up.
"Why are you smiling carefreely after bringing a person as you please…!"
At this, Katheryn, hanging on my left arm, said sothing while getting mad, but I couldn't help it.
She was a challenger who could restrain Namgung Hyuk, who was going rampant without any penalty.
"Smiling was my mistake. I just thought it was amazing to be flying in the sky."
I couldn't leave Katheryn behind when the full-scale fight with Namgung Hyuk would be starting soon.
Because of Namgung Hyuk, who had begun to indiscriminately destroy buildings in Shinjuku ward, I had no ti to explain.
Of course, we could've fought Namgung Hyuk after waiting for the collapse, but the goal wasn't just to defeat Namgung Hyuk, but also to protect the city.
That's why I couldn't wait any longer, and I was flying with my wings straight out like this.
Perhaps she noticed that fact. She beca quite calm, unlike a while ago, struggling for to let her go.
"In all honesty… you're insane. You must have a screw loose sowhere. Who in the world would agree to fly without explanation in that situation?"
"Needless to say, the grunting was still there, but I could obviously bear with it."
I responded to Katheryn's words while pouring so more mana into the wings and increasing my speed.
Whiiiish—!
"…I couldn't explain one by one and fly in a situation where the city was being destroyed."
"…I know. I'm just saying, so don't take it seriously."
Katheryn said as though she was fed up, then raised her head and looked at .
"So, what are you planning to do now?"
"What's the point of asking? We'll go to Namgung hyuk."
"No, not that. I'm asking about the battle plan."
"…?"
"You don't have any? You left everyone else behind and just brought ."
"That's obviously because you're a person who can't be taken out in this battle."
But she frowned frustratingly and then let out a deep sigh.
"Right now, only the two of us ca here, and everyone else is still in the helicopter.
"That's right."
"Then you or I will have to create an opening for that monster to activate the power, right?"
"Is that the reason why you asked if I had a battle plan?"
Then Katheryn nodded as if she was tired of , and I quickly fell into my thoughts.
That's because I wondered if the bare minimum of a battle plan was necessary like she said.
But…
'But there really is no such thing as a battle plan.'
I imdiately concluded that there was no such thing as a battle plan, and there was no need for such a thing.
Because—
"You said you can land properly even if you fell from the air, Katheryn."
From the mont we ca out of the helicopter, I had already decided on how to unleash the strongest attack on Namgung Hyuk through this flight.
"…?"
"That should be enough. Because there's no need for other battle plans."
"No, honestly. Are you making fun of …?!"
"How will you be landing?"
"…It's a skill. It's called a leap of purity, and the bearer becos immune from all fall damage."
"That's a great skill. I guess there's nothing to worry about."
Even when Katheryn was mad, once she was asked a question, she stopped her tantrum and answered.
At that, I lowered my head and gave a bitter smile after looking into her eyes for a mont.
I couldn't help but send her a little bit of pity.
Because she had to land on the ground without anyone's help from now.
"Katheryn."
"…?"
"I'm sorry, but the battle plan has already been set."
"What do you…"
"I'll slam Namgung Hyuk with my wings while I drop onto Namgung Hyuk."
"Wh-What are you talking about!? You might die if you do that!"
"It's fine. I won't die. At most, it'll probably be about breaking a few limbs plus a fracture on my entire body."
I wouldn't die easily because there was the tenacity stat that I'd raised with Necromancy so far.
As long as I didn't hurt my head or heart, I probably wouldn't get into that much of a serious situation.
I wasn’t worried that much because the Ashen Blood skill would shut off the sense of pain and recover quickly.
But Katheryn looked at while opening and closing her mouth, dilating her pupils in disbelief.
"B-But that's… why would you go that far…"
"I wonder. These are the only things that I can do, so."
I couldn't win if I didn't risk my life in even a single battle.
In the Tower, where defeat ans death, I could only risk my life in the beginning.
I could survive only by risking my own life and doing nonsensical things.
And it continued while climbing the Tower and fighting countless monsters.
But Katheryn looked at like a person who was about to commit a supre sacrifice and—
"You're really out of your mind."
She chewed on that word and gazed down with vacant eyes.
I couldn't really say anything back, so I just said one statent.
"See you later."
She'll understand the situation when she actually sees alive.
I freed Katheryn from my left arm and fell to the center, where roars could be heard.
It was the center where the building was currently being destroyed, so Namgung Hyuk was probably right down here.
In an instant, the speed of the fall increased transcendentally, and soon the air resistance began to push the body away.
***
***
It didn't matter.
「Using the soul of the Earth Snake to replenish mana. 」
「Using the soul of the Earth Snake to replenish ma… 」
「Using the soul of the Earth Snake to replenish… 」
By converting all the remaining souls obtained in the trial of the 10th floor into mana, and replenishing all the mana scraped right down to the bottom, I accelerated to the limit.
「 Activating Wrought Iron Pendant’s (B) effect ‘Steel’s Blessing.’ 」
「 Your skin develops a property that absorbs all physical damage by 10% 」
I even activated the Wrought Iron Pendant's property of absorbing physical damage after a long ti.
「 Creating a barrier by consuming blood with the unique effect of The Vampire Count’s Old Tailcoat (A-). 」
At the sa ti, through the Vampire Count's Old Tailcoat, I wrapped myself in a pretty good barrier.
I didn't stop there. I protected my brain by wrapping my head with the Wings of Steel.
And—
Slaaaaaaaaaaaam!
Then I fell to the ground with a deafening noise.
***
The Namgung noble family.
It's a family with such strong prosperity that it's called the best among the five noble families in Murim.
And at the sa ti, it was a huge group where the sword master, who's respected by all martial artists, was present as the previous head of the family.
However…
-To think that a person born as a young master of the Namgung noble family is dull-witted. What should we do about this?
Namgung Hyuk, born in that high-powered Namgung family, had a poor childhood due to the prestige of his family.
When he turned six years old, Namgung Hyuk was insulted by his father for being a dull-witted bastard.
Dull-witted.
In an era where the value of a person is determined only by the talent of their martial arts.
The evaluation that Namgung Hyuk had heard from his father could only be said to be disastrous.
He was weak, and he couldn't speak properly, unlike other kids.
Seeing him, Namgung Hyuk's father despised him until he reached the age of ten.
-Your rise of skill level in martial arts has already stopped at this point?
At one ti, his father persecuted his mother, asking if he was really his son who inherited his blood.
And each ti, Namgung Hyuk had to listen to his father and mother fight with an empty look.
Why is a child, who will be active as a rising star in a few years, like this?
Namgung Hyuk's father treated him harshly and persecuted him like that every day…
But he wasn't talentless for martial arts or inferior to other children.
-Why doesn't everyone understand the sound of the sword?
Namgung Hyuk was born with the ability to hear the sound of the sword.
It's not that the sword actually speaks, but he just hears the sword ringing.
But through that process, Namgung Hyuk was learning martial arts with the sound of the sword.
Such as where to swing the sword and where to draw the sword to cut the enemy.
Or where you should point the sword to parry the enemy's attack and lead to a counterattack.
He could figure it all out through the sound of the sword.
Genius.
Namgung Hyuk had a talent that can't be stressed enough, even if labeled as a heaven-sent gift.
However, Namgung Hyuk's talent was useless to his father, who thought that only the technique of martial arts was everything.
-I'm not interested in inferior children who can't even follow a specified movent.
At the age of ten, he was branded as an inferior child and regarded as a burden.
-You're carving the path of the sword before even following the specified movent. You're a true genius.
Until he t his grandfather, the forr head of the Namgung noble family and called the swordmaster of that ti.
From that mont on, from an inferior child who simply couldn't follow a set movent, Namgung Hyuk was raised by his grandfather as a genius of a sword with innate qualities that no one could match.
Namgung Hyuk's grandfather respected him, saying that learning a martial art isn't just about following specific techniques.
No, to be more precise, he respected Namgung Hyuk's talent.
His talent itself, which could only be called violent.
The result was simple.
-Sword Ki at the age of thirteen, huh… Your achievent is higher than when I was young.
Namgung Hyuk reached the level of a Sword Ki Master at the sa ti a sudden realization overwheld him.
It was an achievent that he achieved only three years after he began to learn martial arts properly.
At that instant, for the first ti, Namgung Hyuk felt a taste of freedom.
Blue sky.
The fluttering blue Sword Ki resembled the flow of the sky and ran freely.
But even if so, he was only at a level where he could hurt people with Ki.
Namgung Hyuk was greatly disappointed by that fact, but his grandfather soon turned his disappointnt into expectation.
-Martial art isn't a path that exists only to kill people, but a path to transcendence.
The sword master showed that Namgung Hyuk's Sword Ki wasn't just for killing people.
Acquiring god-like abilities through endless self-training is what martial arts are.
And he generously inford Namgung Hyuk that the state he had now reached was just the beginning of that path.
Originally, Ki was a law that existed in a world so small that it couldn't be seen with the naked eye.
A small perceptive world.
After condensing the existence of the small world's Ki into the body, which is so small that it can't be observed at all…
And twisting the laws of reality by bringing it to the observable realm called the large perceptive world…
-The starting point of that is Sword Ki.
Twisting the laws of reality so that you could pierce through steel like tofu was the true nature of the Sword Ki.
It was around then—
「The Tower of Trials is selecting the right person from the Murim dinsion.」
Namgung Hyuk was summoned to the Tower of Trials that he heard as a rumor.
And he climbed the Tower faster than anyone else and finally made a splendid achievent of climbing up to the 20th floor.
It was an incredible feat accomplished at the age of only seventeen, but…
-I don't know why there are so many boring people in the world.
Namgung Hyuk rather fell into a feeling of boredom because of this, and he didn't climb the Tower and only passed the ti.
In the anti, he realized that an interesting elent called 'floor intrusion' existed in the Tower.
Since then, he has been fighting challengers from minor dinsions who won't cause trouble even if he fights them.
In the process, Namgung Hyuk felt that the boredom he began to feel while climbing the Tower was slowly recovering.
He felt like the blood that had cooled after a long ti of boiling.
The challengers of a dinsion that wasn't even properly registered in the Tower were weak.
However, there were learning opportunities among them, and Namgung Hyuk grew stronger and stronger.
Because of that, Namgung Hyuk didn't even climb the Tower properly and only slaughtered challengers from minor dinsions.
He found out that the felon that killed Baek Sunhak, the elder of the Murim alliance, was a challenger belonging to a minor dinsion.
And without hesitation, Namgung Hyuk moved to the small dinsion to fight the challenger and caused a bloody slaughter.
But this ti, sothing was odd.
"…"
Namgung Hyuk, who was destroying buildings in Shinjuku-ward of Tokyo, was puking out blood from his mouth.
"Kohough…."
He was quite damaged by the unidentified object that had just fallen from the sky.
His internal organs of the body were quite damaged, and the flow of the Ki flowing through his body was also greatly disturbed.
Still, in the midst of that, Namgung Hyuk kept his eyes open and looked at that sothing ramd down on the wreckage of the building he was destroying.
What had just fallen from the sky slowly recovered its shape from the shape that wrapped itself in its wings and soon turned into a human.
And—
A man in an old red tailcoat stumbled out of the wreckage of the building.
Soon after, he spat out the blood that had gathered in his mouth and muttered to himself as if he was fed up.
"…I swear, falling from the sky is sothing you can't do twice."
——
——
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