Li Ching-wei wore a strange expression.
It was as if she were doubting whether she had heard correctly, or perhaps she found his absurd words intriguing.
Blinking as she stared at Limon, she tilted her head slightly and asked, “Are you being serious?”
“Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it?”
Limon smirked.
In this Iron Age, a Sovereign was an absolute being—transhumans capable of handling an entire army alone, holding even the heads of state in the palm of their hands.
To suggest that one of them, the Infinite Sovereign, was merely a puppet?
It wasn’t something a sane person would say.
If Yu Na-gyeong were alive, she would have screamed that her team leader had finally gone senile, and Limon would have flicked her forehead while doubting his own mental health.
However, Limon did not take back his words.
He simply continued in a calm voice.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but this was actually my first time fighting a Sovereign.”
“I suppose it would be.”
Li Ching-wei accepted this as a matter of course.
Unless a war had broken out, there would have been no reason for Limon to go out of his way to fight a Sovereign.
Limon wasn’t the type to intentionally trample on the sprouts of a new era, and the Sovereigns had nothing to gain from fighting a hero of the past.
If such a thing had happened, the status of Sword Masters wouldn’t have fallen so low.
“To be honest, I’ve been quite curious for a while. Just how incredible are these Sovereigns that I’ve been treated like a washed-up relic?”
When he fought Lee Cheon-gi.
The reason Limon focused so obsessively on probing his opponent was not just because he was interested in Lee Cheon-gi, who had stolen and learned his swordsmanship.
It was because he genuinely wanted to know.
He wanted to see the full power of those called the absolute rulers of this era—the Sovereigns.
Even if Limon had decided to live in accordance with the flow of the times, he was all the more curious about the strength of the Sovereigns who reigned at the pinnacle of this age.
“That’s why I was surprised when I fought the Infinite Sovereign.”
At first, he thought the man was hiding his strength.
Midway through, a sense of dissonance began to grow.
And finally, he realized it.
“I didn’t expect a bastard with the title of Sovereign to be so weak.”
A transhuman who conquered the lowest floors of dungeons deemed impregnable, a player who reached level 100, and the apex of all players ruling this era.
The Sovereigns.
He realized they were surprisingly frail.
“The Sovereigns… are weak?”
Perhaps she hadn’t expected to hear such an absurd evaluation.
Looking at Li Ching-wei, whose eyes were wide with surprise, Limon shrugged lightly.
“To be precise, he was below my expectations.”
A skill that steals swordsmanship?
If he had stolen the principles and the intent of the sword, that would have been worth acknowledging.
No, to be honest, Limon thought he would at least be able to do that much.
The Sovereign Limon expected was that kind of existence.
That was also why he kept checking until the very last moment to see if Lee Cheon-gi had anything more to show.
But in the end, Lee Cheon-gi failed to properly understand the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Severing Sword and collapsed after mindlessly spamming skills.
“Well, objectively speaking, he wasn’t at a pathetic level, but…”
It wasn’t that Lee Cheon-gi was weak.
The ability to freely use thousands of skills was certainly a cheat-like power.
In particular, the thousand skills he used at the end were worthy of facing the ultimate art of the Demon-Slaying Dragon-Severing Sword.
But compared to Limon’s expectations?
“It makes me tilt my head in doubt to call someone of that level an absolute being.”
The Elf Queen and the Wordmaster who ruled the Golden Age.
The Great Witch and the Saint who reigned over the Silver Age.
The Seven Dragons that conquered the Bronze Age.
The Sword Masters who were active in the Age of Heroes.
In every era, there were always those called absolute beings.
The owners of that position simply changed as the eras shifted and new powers emerged.
And no matter the era, absolute beings had one thing in common.
They possessed the ability to overwhelm all the absolute beings that existed in the previous era!
In fact, the Seven Dragons proved their power by devouring the incarnations of gods, and the first Sword Master, the Sword Emperor, came to be called an absolute being by cutting down those Seven Dragons.
Unfortunately, however, Lee Cheon-gi did not have the power to surpass the absolute beings of the previous era, the Sword Masters.
At most, he was a bit stronger than the Great Witch or the Wordmaster.
Limon’s cold judgment was that he couldn’t even handle the Seven Dragons, let alone a Sword Master.
Of course, that alone was an incredible ability.
But compared to the absolute beings of previous eras who had no rivals at all, it was as Limon said—he couldn’t help but tilt his head in doubt.
“It’s almost a mystery how they were even recognized as absolute beings in the first place.”
That was why he felt a sense of dissonance. Something he had accepted as a natural flow of the times.
Was it truly a natural change of eras for the ten Sovereigns to reign as absolute beings?
Was it a coincidence that the Sovereigns came to be called absolute beings without going through the sequence they naturally should have—namely, fighting Limon, the absolute being of the previous era?
That was the beginning of his suspicion.
“So I suddenly became curious. What on earth did they believe in to act like absolute beings, and how were they so confident that they were stronger than me?”
Perhaps Lee Cheon-gi just had a particularly bad compatibility with Limon.
Since he lacked his own unique skill other than ‘Technique Replication’ and instead handled thousands of skills, he was an outlier even among the Sovereigns.
But Limon could say for certain.
It made no sense for someone who couldn’t even overcome a mere difference in compatibility to be called an absolute being.
At least, that was what an absolute being meant in his eyes.
In that sense, Limon’s suspicion was reasonable.
Reasonable enough for him to shake down the dying Lee Cheon-gi and make him spit out everything he knew.
“Though that bastard knew almost nothing about the reason for it himself.”
Limon smirked.
To begin with, Lee Cheon-gi was born in the Iron Age.
He was someone who grew up learning that Sovereigns being absolute was common sense.
Asking him why a Sovereign was so weak wouldn’t yield a proper answer.
In fact, Lee Cheon-gi had made a very peculiar expression for several reasons when he heard that question.
That alone was enough to know.
Even if he caught and questioned any other Sovereign besides Lee Cheon-gi, it would be difficult to hear the answer he wanted.
In the end, they were also players.
They were people accustomed to taking what was given to them as a matter of course and using it.
“Instead, thanks to prying into this and that, I found out an unexpected fact.”
“What kind of fact is that?”
“That bastard originally had no intention of killing me.”
“…After he blew up a building and mobilized hundreds of high-level players to catch you?”
“Ah, that part about trying to kill me then is true. Though the process was a bit funny.”
Limon chuckled.
Then, tossing the used towel behind him, he spoke lightly.
“The important thing is that he only intended to force me into retirement at first.”
When Limon crushed Lee Cheon-gi’s brother-in-law, Seo Yong-chan, Lee Cheon-gi gave orders to take measures against Limon.
But that was merely to the extent of putting pressure on the PAB to fire Limon.
At that stage, there was no plan at all to frame him for treason or set a trap to kill him.
It wasn’t because he was wary of Limon.
If anything, it was the opposite.
Since he had no interest in a washed-up relic like a Sword Master, he didn’t even feel the need to dispose of him.
“But he said that because of a certain event, he started wanting to deal with me more thoroughly.”
“What kind of event?”
“Yeah. There was something that bastard had been looking for really hard lately, and he found out that the person who happened to have it met with me.”
He feared it might have been passed to Limon.
Or, even if it wasn’t, Limon might become an obstacle in obtaining it.
Harboring such suspicions, Lee Cheon-gi felt the need to deal with Limon for sure, beyond just getting him fired.
“Combined with his subordinates’ excessive loyalty and the PAB Director’s overreaction, things seem to have spiraled out of control on their own… well, that’s not important, so let’s move on.”
Limon shrugged his shoulders.
Then, tidying his messy hair roughly with his hand, he spoke.
“The core of the problem is this: ‘If it hadn’t been for that meeting, the sword fight between the Infinite Sovereign and me might never have happened.'”
Of course, that was just a hypothesis.
It wasn’t something that could be stated as a certainty.
Even if he had only been fired, Limon might have gotten angry and stormed into the Infinity Guild to cause a ruckus.
Or Lee Cheon-gi might have tried to finish Limon off later when he became an eyesore.
Just as two tigers cannot coexist on one mountain, if Lee Cheon-gi wanted to become an absolute ruler, a clash with Limon was inevitable someday.
But… was it truly inevitable?
“It’s quite a coincidence.”
If it had been anyone other than Limon, they might have brushed it off as mere bad luck.
However, the intuition of the Sword Master, who had lived through countless years and experienced many things, did not miss the subtle dissonance within.
“If I hadn’t fallen like this and been treated as a relic, no bastard would have dared to rush at me so recklessly.”
The fall of the Sword Masters.
Was that truly a result of the flow of the times?
Or had someone intentionally undermined the position of the Sword Masters?
“And that bastard Lee Cheon-gi wouldn’t have pulled such a reckless stunt in front of everyone if he hadn’t been put on a pedestal as an absolute being.”
The fall of the Sword Masters.
The Sovereigns who were called absolute beings.
Was it the fault of the era that they became overconfident in themselves?
Or were there those who overvalued them as absolute beings and puffed them up with empty air?
“It’s also strange that the meeting happened right after I had friction with the Infinite Sovereign.”
It could only be described as a remarkable coincidence.
A result that appeared because separate issues, which could have been overlooked individually, overlapped by sheer bad luck.
“Well, it could all be a coincidence.”
Limon didn’t ignore the possibility of simple misfortune.
Over a long life, one experiences enough overlapping misfortunes to be unable to count them on one’s fingers.
“It’s usually the kind of thing you couldn’t do even if you tried.”
The fall of the Sword Masters and the rise of the Sovereigns were social phenomena that occurred over decades.
It wasn’t something that could be easily done by intention.
Unless a being with transcendent power capable of twisting the principles of the world intervened.
It was a result that a massive organization might barely be able to create only by investing enormous capital and manpower over a long period.
“For that reason, I initially suspected the intervention of beings who transcend humanity…”
It was a suspicion Limon could have because he was now able to see the Constellations.
The ridicule and hostility he felt from the Constellations when he fell into the trap were enough to harbor such doubts.
Nevertheless, the reason Limon ended his interrogation of Lee Cheon-gi by simply dismissing the gaze of the Constellations was that their hostility was actually too blatant.
If there truly were a mastermind behind the scenes who secretly made the Sovereigns absolute and manipulated Lee Cheon-gi to fight him?
Would they reveal themselves so easily?
Conversely, wouldn’t they try to hide their hostility until the very end?
“But you see, I know some people who are much better at this kind of trickery than some half-baked god or Constellation.”
That was why Limon smirked.
A force with massive influence across society.
Furthermore, those who were not only skilled at plotting from behind the scenes but also harbored a deep grudge against him.
Limon knew that force all too well—the one that had stubbornly survived even after fighting him, an absolute being, for hundreds of years.
“In that sense, I have to ask.”
*Clang!*
It happened in an instant.
Limon drawing his sword.
And his blunt question, as if confirming something.
“Is it you?”
A cold face devoid of any laughter.
Golden eyes that were so calm they felt chilly.
With his sword pointed at Li Ching-wei’s throat, Limon asked again in a languid voice.
“I’m asking if you are the masterminds who orchestrated this. Princess of the Black Dragon Clan.”
As if he would cut her throat this instant depending on her answer.
Limon exuded a chilling bloodlust.
His appearance was truly terrifying, to the point where it wouldn’t be strange for an ordinary girl to immediately cower in fear.
However, Li Ching-wei, the target of that blade, showed no sign of fear.
Staring straight at Limon, she let a faint smile play on her lips.
She simply answered in a clear voice.
“Yes.”