* * *

At Black Dragon Construction’s headquarters. In Leviathan’s lobby. In the Underground Dragon Palace beneath it. Few perceived the world-collapsing distortion and enormous bursts of light that came from the stars descending at each location. What had happened lay outside the natural order, beyond ordinary human perception.

But those who were exceptions to the ordinary, whose senses surpassed human limits through psionics or some other power, felt that something had changed. They felt the dissonance as the natural order warped, as the impossible came to pass, and as the present state of things was eroded by an ideal so alien it was sickening.

Apart from that sensation, though, there was a change even an ordinary human could plainly see.

“Well, would you look at that?”

His senses were so keen that Limon noticed the visible change only belatedly. An incredulous look crossed his face. “You acted so confident, I wondered what you were up to...”

He swept his gaze over Ryu Gang-cheol from head to toe and clicked his tongue. “What are you, some kind of Elemental Ranger? You get backed into a corner and put on transformation armor?”

Ryu’s eyes were now nearly three meters off the ground. Brown metal covered his entire body, and scythe-shaped blades jutted from both arms. Too large to be an armor-type item and too grotesquely shaped to be a powered exoskeleton, it really was transformation armor, just as Limon had said. He looked like a steel giant cobbled together from a human and a praying mantis, his original appearance almost impossible to recognize.

[Talk all you want.]

Ryu was unfazed. As though he hadn’t been trembling at the sight of Limon moments earlier, he spoke with murderous menace in a metallic voice. [You won’t be talking once you’re dead!]

He lowered himself and kicked off the floor.

BOOOOM!

A deafening crack tore through the air, and a tremendous impact shook the building. Ryu had charged at supersonic speed, like a jet, and Limon had met his blade with his sword. But that was only the beginning.

[What happened to all that talk? Go on, run your mouth some more!]

Ryu struck at Limon’s head, slashed for his throat, and thrust at his heart. The two scythes whipped about too fast to see, a veritable storm of blades. With supersonic speed and precision aimed at vital points, he was a machine built to butcher humans.

There was just one problem. Not one of those countless strikes could cut Limon.

CLANG, CLANG-CLANG!

Limon swung his sword and knocked a scythe aside. He twisted it to deflect a slash. He drew it back and made the scythes collide. Calmly, cleanly, he stopped Ryu’s storm of blades with a single sword and murmured, “Hmm. Speed like this would put you at level ninety... No, at least level ninety-five, a duke-class player specialized in speed? You certainly have gotten faster.”

Limon readily acknowledged it. Ryu had indeed grown faster—fast enough to fight a master-level expert one-on-one without resorting to clones.

“But so what?”

[What do you—]

SLICE!

“You’re still nowhere near fast enough.”

What a fucking stupid thing to do, Limon thought. Whether Ryu was a count-class player in the eighties or a duke-class player in the nineties, it was the difference between a slug and a turtle. Limon had even faced Monarchs while holding back and swallowing his sighs. To him, Ryu’s display was clowning that didn’t even qualify as a desperate struggle.

Ryu’s head, severed in a single stroke, was proof enough.

THUD!

“Tch. All this fuss because they couldn’t catch one idiot. The Black Dragon Clan really has gotten weaker since the old days.”

As though the result were quite unexpected, Limon stared wide-eyed at Ryu’s severed head and his body fallen like a log, then clicked his tongue. He spun his sword and drew it back as if sheathing it. “Don’t you agree, idiot?”

STAB!

[Ghk?!]

The clone had suppressed every trace of his presence and approached from behind, only to be stabbed through the chest before he could swing a blade. Identical to the Ryu who had just fallen, he stared in disbelief.

[H-how...?]

“What do you mean, how? You were leaking killing intent all over the place. How could I not notice?” Limon said flatly. He twisted his sword, crushing Ryu’s heart, and added quietly, “So why don’t the rest of you quit hiding and come on out?”

RUMMMMMBLE.

At that moment, a twisted smile spread across the dying Ryu’s grief-stricken face. The building shuddered violently, windows shattered one after another, and countless brown figures appeared throughout Black Dragon Construction’s headquarters.

[Well, now.] One broke through the ceiling.

[You’re certainly no pushover.] Another smashed through the floor.

[But you’re done showing off.] One vaulted through a window.

[I know I’m no match for you on my own, comrade.] Another came up the stairs.

[But that’s only when I’m alone.]

Brown steel giants smashed through the concrete and filled every direction, like vines winding around the entire building.

A senior officer of the Liberation Brigade. Twelfth in rank among its twelve ghosts. The one with the codename Fool. Ryu Gang-cheol, wielder of the unique skill 『Infinite Proliferation』, surrounded Limon with a hundred clones, each possessing duke-class combat power, and grinned savagely.

[Think you can take on all of us?]

* * *

[Princess, did you know?]

“What is it?”

[Getting stronger when you transform is practically a rule of the genre.]

“Is it?”

[Of course. And how many stories have a protagonist get stronger every time they’re cornered?]

“Is that possible? Perhaps for a Sword Master, but humans aren’t creatures that can grow stronger like that.”

[Maybe humans can’t, but players can. That’s why novels like I Turned My Life Around with an Absolute Skill All by Myself are so popular these days.]

“I see. That makes sense.”

Li Qingyu nodded as though she more or less understood, stepping lightly back with black mist swirling around her. Yu Na-gyeong spoke in earnest.

[And on that note, Princess...]

“Yes?”

[Let’s run away, quick!]

“Do you think we should?”

[Of course we should! Can’t you see him?]

As the spot where Qingyu had just stood was smashed apart, Na-gyeong stretched out a wing. She pointed to Bellows, who was leisurely unleashing skills in the middle of the inverted-pyramid corridor at the heart of the Underground Dragon Palace, and shouted, [That bastard transformed! Transformed!]

In truth, Bellows’s change was hardly dramatic enough to call transformation armor. His clothes had merely become an ornate suit of mechanical armor of the sort an ancient Greek might wear. On its own, it was little different from the equipment changes any player commonly made. The same went for his once-dainty statute book: small enough to fit in a pocket before, it was now thick, larger than a child, and covered in mechanical parts and gears.

[And he’s gotten crazy strong, too!]

That was the problem. As though in proportion to the book’s size, Bellows’s skills had grown terrifyingly powerful.

[Genre rule or not, how does transforming a little make him this much stronger? That’s straight-up cheating!]

“That’s a remarkably accurate way to put it,” Qingyu agreed calmly. The force pressing down on her had increased so much that she could barely move unless she spread the pressure through her black mist. And sheer power wasn’t the only thing his skills had gained.

“『High-Speed Movement Prohibition Act, Enact』.”

“『Bipedal Walking Prohibition Act, Enact』.”

“『Execution Tool Protection Act, Enact』.”

Qingyu faltered. The instant Bellows spoke, her movements slowed, and the foot she was about to put forward stopped. She could no longer move her legs. Bellows did not miss that tiny opening.

“『Hanging, Sentence Sought』.”

[Eek! Princess?!]

A white noose suddenly wrapped around Qingyu’s neck and shot upward. With the pressure still bearing down on her, her neck could snap and kill her instantly.

TAP!

But she reacted swiftly. She flipped over as if doing a handstand, hooked one leg around the rope, and hung upside down from it. The noose loosened, letting her slip free and land neatly again. From her place in Qingyu’s arms, Na-gyeong asked with a stunned look, [... Princess, have you ever worked part-time in a circus?]

“No. But we have a few companies like that under us, so I’ve had plenty of chances to watch.”

[You can learn to do that just by watching?]

For a moment, Na-gyeong caught herself wondering whether she could have imitated those supple movements when she was alive. She immediately refused to consider the answer and hurried on. [A-anyway, Princess, let’s get out of here! It’s too dangerous to keep fighting him!]

This was not the first time they had been cornered. Whenever Qingyu tried to do something, Bellows’s skills blocked her actions, forcing them through one close call after another. Yet Qingyu remained entirely unruffled.

“I’m not sure he’d let me leave even if I tried to run.”

[But we could at least try—]

“『Flight Permit Act, Implement』.”

Na-gyeong snapped her beak shut. At the sound of that low voice, Bellows had flown through the air and appeared in front of Qingyu.

“The weight of the judgments I’ve imposed so far would sink an ordinary battleship... Yet you’re holding up remarkably well.”

“I’m used to bearing burdens,” Qingyu replied evenly.

Bellows gave her a cold, mocking smile. “Hand over that box willingly, even now. Do that, and I’ll guarantee your life.”

“What an interesting thing to say.”

“What’s interesting about it?”

“In my clan, saying ‘I’ll guarantee your life’ means we have no intention of keeping our word and want to fight to the death.”

That was the Seven Dragons Society for you. Bellows fell silent for a moment at the Black Dragon Clan’s utterly bizarre turn of phrase, then spoke in an even colder voice. “... So you intend to keep up this futile struggle to the end?”

“No. I still intend to kill you here.”

“You stupid bitch.”

Bellows let out a derisive laugh and continued with a sneer. “Right now, I’m an absolute being beyond even a Monarch. Do you really think some half-breed descended from primitive lizards can defeat me?”

“An absolute being... Do you truly mean that?”

“Of course.”

Qingyu tilted her head as though she had heard something quite unexpected. Bellows stated firmly, “Humans are subject to the rule of law, and I control the laws here. Naturally, that makes me an absolute being.”

Qingyu could tell he meant every word. “How arrogant,” she said quietly.

“It isn’t arrogance. Merely an objective, absolute assessment,” Bellows said flatly.

He had the power to back it up. His strength and agility alone had already surpassed duke-class levels. And with the effects of his already overpowered 『Rule of Law』 enhanced, his power was now equal to that of the Monarchs—if not greater.

“I’d say believing your subjective judgment is objective and absolute is arrogance in itself.”

Perhaps displeased that Qingyu kept calmly disputing his claims, Bellows said coldly, “If you intend to stall for time with conversation, give up. No one is coming to save you.”

“Is that what you think?”

“My comrades may be idiots and lunatics, but they are excellent killers.”

They differed in rank, but they were all ghosts of the Liberation Brigade. Now that they had used the forbidden 『Constellation Descent』, no one could stop them.

“Especially now that my mad comrade has started rampaging in earnest. The people defending this place must have been slaughtered by now.”

Bellows spoke coldly, as if telling her to abandon any futile hope she still held. But Qingyu showed neither anxiety nor despair.

“I’m not so sure. No matter how formidable your fellow killers are, that won’t be easy for them.”

Her confidence was not born of something as vague and subjective as trust in Yo U-in and the Ink Dragon Unit. It rested on something more objective, more definite. Qingyu smiled.

“I took out a little insurance for just such an occasion.”