Kang Jeong-su inadvertently caught his breath.
It wasn’t just because the voice, despite its low tone, rang in his ears like the tolling of a great temple bell.
“Those who would challenge me, abandon all hope.”
“Those who would fight me, prepare for death.”
“Those who desire my life, throw your own away.”
“Those who lack such resolve, fall to your knees this instant and beg for your life.”
Limon gave the warning in a dry, indifferent voice, as if he were reading a textbook he had memorized after hundreds of recitals.
“This is my final mercy.”
His golden eyes were calmly sunken.
The radiance dwelling within them was chillingly pure.
Because of that, the terrifyingly clear brilliance made Kang Jeong-su instinctively take a step back.
“Bear in mind that those who remain standing after hearing this warning shall never leave here alive.”
It was less of a warning and more of a threat.
It was a death sentence delivered by a single man with nothing but a sword against two hundred men armed with all sorts of firearms and items.
At any other time, everyone would have laughed it off as a joke that wasn’t even funny.
*Gulp.*
But at least for this moment.
Not a single person among the two hundred gathered here laughed at those words.
The dry saliva pooling in their mouths, the knees that felt like they were about to give out, and the goosebumps rising on their necks.
Their bodies were telling them.
‘This isn’t a bluff.’
‘Kneel right now.’
‘This is your only chance.’
It was the whisper of instinct.
A premonition delivered by the body before the mind could process it.
Had they been ordinary civilians, they would have collapsed immediately under the crushing pressure of death.
Unfortunately, there were two problems.
The people here were elites with enough skill and arrogance to overcome that pressure of death.
And their leader vastly overestimated his own judgment.
To the point that he ignored the warning of instinct and immediately issued an order to stabilize their wavering morale.
“Why are you standing there listening to that nonsense?! Attack, now!”
Regardless of whether he was right or wrong.
Kang Jeong-su’s judgment was effective.
The moment they received the command, those who had been wavering between instinct and reason resolved to fight Limon without a single exception.
They were united with almost uncanny solidarity.
And the first to signal the start of the battle were those most accustomed to following orders.
“All units, open fire!”
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
***
The 909 Unit.
In truth, if one only looked at levels, they were among the weakest of those gathered here.
Since they were fundamentally soldiers, it was inevitable that their average level was lower than that of Players who made a living by clearing Dungeons.
However, in terms of combat power, they were stronger than any other group present.
The secret lay in their equipment.
Exoskeleton KIM-S009.
It was a masterpiece from the Agency for Defense Development, created by combining advanced scientific technology with materials from level 70 high-level monsters, such as the bones of a Bone Knight, the armor of a Living Army, fragments of a Metal Golem, and the arrowheads of a Shadow Hunter.
Due to the exorbitant material costs, each unit was notoriously more expensive than a fighter jet, but the performance of the KIM-S009 was commensurate with its price.
It was enough to allow a mid-tier Player of only level 30 to fight on equal footing with a level 60 Player.
In particular, the Shadow Bullet of its standard weapon, the Shadow Gun, was a weapon that even high-level Players feared because it dealt damage that ignored defenses.
What would happen if fifty members of the 909 Unit, armed with such KIM-S009s, fired simultaneously?
It was equivalent to a death sentence.
Unless one had a special skill like Absolute Defense, it was impossible for even a high-level Player to block hundreds of incoming Shadow Bullets.
“What…?”
That was why.
That was why Mira, the Guild Master of Stardust, couldn’t help but wear a dazed expression.
“What just happened?”
Mira couldn’t understand.
She didn’t understand why Limon, who had been subjected to the 909 Unit’s volley, was still standing perfectly fine.
And immediately after the firing started.
She didn’t understand why all fifty members of the 909 Unit had collapsed simultaneously.
The situation was so mysterious that for a moment, she even suspected the 909 Unit was using some kind of deceptive tactic.
*Drip.*
But the sight of shattered heads.
The eyeballs rolling on the ground.
And above all, the hot blood splattered on her cheek.
These things made the situation so clear that she couldn’t mistake it even if she tried.
‘Annihilated? The 909 Unit?’
The 909 Unit weren’t common soldiers.
They were an ultra-elite unit where each individual rivaled a high-level Player, and five of them together could crush most guilds.
Even for her, a level 93 Archduke-class Player, the 909 Unit were combat specialists that would be difficult to handle if there were more than ten.
For such people to be wiped out in an instant, in less than a second after firing.
It was unbelievable even after seeing it with her own eyes.
And naturally, she wasn’t the only one shocked by this situation.
“Oh my god.”
“Ahn Dong-kwon?”
“This is insane… how could he do something like that…?”
“What do you mean, something like that? What skill did he just use?”
The Guild Master of Cheonjong had a face as pale as a corpse.
Thanks to his Unique Skill, Ahn Dong-kwon was the only one in this place who saw what Limon had done, and he spoke as if squeezing the words out.
“No.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t a skill.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?”
Mira felt absurd.
She naturally assumed Limon had used a skill.
Of course, that would only be possible if Limon was both a Sword Master and an Archduke-class Player.
Still, Mira believed that.
In her common sense, it was impossible to cause such a mysterious phenomenon without using a skill like Time Stop or Power Word.
However, Ahn Dong-kwon denied her common sense with a piercing scream.
“That monster reflected the bullets flying at him with his sword and sent them back to the 909 Unit members!!!”
For a very brief moment.
Mira couldn’t understand those words.
And once she understood the meaning, she made an incredibly bizarre face.
“Reflected… them? Fifty Shadow Bullets fired at supersonic speed almost simultaneously, back to the people who fired them without a single deviation?”
“Yes.”
“Without using a skill. Just, with… his swordsmanship?”
“……Probably.”
“D-Does that even make sense?!”
Ahn Dong-kwon didn’t give any answer to Mira, who was questioning him with a face that looked like her eyes might pop out.
Whether she accepted it or not.
Reality didn’t change.
“That’s… there’s no way. That’s impossible even for a Player who has mastered swordsmanship skills…”
Muttering to herself while biting her nails to soothe her anxiety, she suddenly fell silent.
She finally realized anew who she was dealing with.
‘Limon Aspelder.’
An artifact of the old era who knew nothing but swordplay.
A symbol of the backward past that fell as the times changed.
She had thought it would be a profitable deal if clearing out such a relic could put the PAB Director in her debt and win favor even with the Infinity Monarch.
She thought Limon was only known as a guardian deity because there were no Players at the time.
Just as warriors were active in the old days.
And just as the way of the warrior fell with the advancement of guns.
She believed there was no need for a master of the sword in this modern era.
She had judged that disposing of an ‘ordinary person’ who was simply a bit good with a blade would be easy.
…But was that the right judgment?
‘Why?’
Mira.
Guild Master of Stardust.
An Archduke-class Player, of which there were fewer than a hundred in the world.
She, who prided herself on knowing more than others, finally felt a massive sense of cognitive dissonance.
‘Why did I believe a Sword Master would be weaker than me?’
Compared to a Player who could handle powerful skills and bring immense wealth and progress to the world, a Sword Master was an existence that knew nothing but swordplay.
That was why they were treated as relics.
But if you looked at it from the opposite perspective?
It also meant they were exceptionally good at swordplay.
Just as a successful businessman being respected in society doesn’t mean he is stronger than a soldier or a martial artist.
Just because a Player earns fame and money doesn’t mean they can naturally win a fight against a Sword Master.
Nevertheless, she hadn’t doubted that fact until now.
Just as no wealthy man is wary of a soldier.
She thought that no matter how good he was with a blade, he would be no match for her who could use skills.
But could that swordsmanship be called ‘just’?
Was the fact that he could reign as an absolute being really just thanks to the absence of Players?
About the existence known as Limon Aspelder…
No, had ‘they’ been making some kind of absurd mistake, bound by common sense?
Like a foolish nouveau riche who believes he’ll be fine because he’s rich, even as he hits a soldier holding a gun with a bag of money?
Or…
Like a marionette puppet jumping into a burning flame, led by someone’s strings, without even knowing it’s a puppet?
“So.”
As if there were no need to even put her down.
Still holding a certain woman’s body.
The very person who had annihilated the 909 Unit by swinging a sword held in one hand.
“Who wants to be the next to die?”
An absolute being who had saved the world several times and protected human peace for hundreds of years.
Looking into the ice-cold eyes of humanity’s last Sword Master, Mira trembled violently.
“…This.”
***
After standing dazed for a long time.
Kang Jeong-su, who had been frozen as if someone were clutching his throat, barely managed to move his lips.
“How can something so ridiculous…”
When he saw the 909 Unit being annihilated in an instant.
Kang Jeong-su remained calm.
No matter how much they increased their combat power with expensive equipment, they were ultimately intermediate Players.
It was possible for them to be defeated helplessly if caught off guard.
Even when the criminal Players and killers who rushed in afterward were slaughtered in the blink of an eye.
He might have been surprised, but he accepted it.
It was the result of them rushing in haphazardly without coordination, like criminals who hadn’t received combat training.
Until then, he still believed.
If the remaining 120 high-level Players demonstrated their skills properly.
And if the Archduke-class Players, Mira and Ahn Dong-kwon, whom he had barely invited by promising massive benefits, stepped in, the situation would change.
…That was until just a few minutes ago.
“You idiot.”
“Gasp!”
Kang Jeong-su recoiled in horror and fell over.
And as he hurriedly turned to crawl away, he froze in horror again.
It was because a single head with both eyes burst out was lying right in front of his nose.
It wasn’t just that one head.
A mercenary split down the middle.
A PAB agent with a hole in their chest.
A Player with their head smashed, and so on.
Around him now, various horrific corpses that were unbearable to look at were piled up like a mountain.
“Did you really think you could catch me with two hundred small fry like this?”
“W-What have you done!”
The person responsible for creating that mountain of corpses.
Looking at the white-haired young man who didn’t have a single drop of blood on him even in this situation, Kang Jeong-su screamed as if inadvertently.
“Do you know who these people are?! They are the future of our country! They were the pillars that would support this nation for nearly half a century!”
It was by no means an exaggeration.
30 elite PAB agents.
50 fully armed members of the 909 Unit.
38 guild members from the raiding divisions of Stardust and Cheonjong.
Plus 50 S-class mercenaries from Black Wolf and about 30 various criminals and killers.
Even setting aside the last two groups, 118 state-affiliated Players died in this place.
Furthermore, 68 of them were high-level Players.
In this era, a high-level Player was an individual who was both a one-man corporation and an asymmetric power.
For 68 such high-level Players to be massacred all at once was an unprecedented incident since the beginning of the Iron Age.
If this became known?
The country would be shaken to its foundations in an instant.
“So what?”
However, Limon coldly mocked Kang Jeong-su’s scream.
“If the country’s future was that precious, you shouldn’t have sent them to attack me.”