Sword Master With One Strike Kill - Chapter 181

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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One-Strike Kill Swordmaster Episode 181

Episode 181. Puppet Master (4)

Ding-!

〔You have used the Authority Skill: 【Supersense Remnant】 engraved in the Silent Chest.〕

Whoooooosh-!

With a resonance as if something was swirling and being sucked in, the world I perceived completely transformed.

Senses amplified to the extreme.

All the noise bursting from every direction pierced deep into my ears, pounding my eardrums.

The sound of Adelia’s sword cutting through the air. The explosive noise of Roren’s aura sweeping through the puppets. And even the roars spewed by the chimeras sewn together with stitches.

Each sound penetrated deep into my mind independently, yet layered upon each other.

My vision was even more chaotic.

Is this how the world looks to someone intoxicated by drugs?

Dazzling flashes endlessly flickered, mixing colors like madness.

The intense light source created by Biyolf’s artificial sun distorted everything, completely shaking any sense of reality.

Isaac’s ice magic shattered into rainbow colors like a prism under the sunlight, and Selena’s flames drew red trajectories in the air, leaving afterimages.

‘Ugh…’

My stomach churned from the extremely heightened senses. My head throbbed and dizziness washed over me like waves.

Even in that chaos, I forced myself to lift my head and face the sky.

Swoosh-.

And I saw it. The countless threads densely filling the heavens.

“…”

Yes.

This was exactly the masterpiece that Puppet Master Batu had spent hundreds of years crafting.

A product of madness that turned the entire city into his own stage. An unprecedented puppet show controlling thousands of marionettes simultaneously.

“Adelia, Roren.”

I opened my mouth.

“Right now, immediately fall back.”

Flinch-.

Both people engaged in fierce battle reacted simultaneously.

Adelia blocked the final attack from the chimera she was facing, then quickly retreated, while Roren hid himself in the shadows without hesitation, completely withdrawing from the front lines.

Both had intuitively grasped the meaning behind my words.

Grip-.

I clutched the Feather Sword even tighter.

Then I looked at the thousands of puppets filling the battlefield and the countless threads controlling them.

Ding-!

〔You have used Authority Skill: 【True Ritardando】.〕

The world stopped.

All the chaotic things froze in an instant. The deafening noise of battle that had been echoing suddenly subsided.

The chimeras’ roars, the metallic sounds of clashing swords, even the thunderous explosions of magic, everything.

The flashes that had been disturbing my vision also froze.

Isaac’s ice spear sparkled brilliantly while suspended in mid-air, and Selena’s flames were fixed in the air like red petals. Even Biyolf’s sun no longer flickered.

Complete silence.

A world where everything held its breath.

In that absolute stillness where even time was confined, only I could freely observe everything.

‘So this is how it feels.’

The combination of supersense and ritardando.

This was an application I had never attempted before.

Even when facing the Outsider, I had only used super intuition, never pushing supersense to its limits.

Swoosh-.

In the stopped time, I looked once more at the threads filling the sky.

It was complex.

A structure so complex and intricate it surpassed imagination.

Befitting Batu’s masterpiece completed with all his might, it was on a different level from simple spider webs. Each thread intertwined and twisted with others, moving like a living organism.

Some threads supported others, some assisted, and others played key roles in balancing the entire structure.

If I tried to cut this thoughtlessly and recklessly?

Rather, those connections would twist even more tightly. The severed threads would wrap around each other, creating even more solid knots.

This was exactly why indiscriminate magical bombardment could never solve this problem.

‘Of course…’

Even if I had just used 【Soul of the Sword Master】 in this situation, I probably could have severed all those links.

Having destroyed even Dorico Shiro’s barrier, I could certainly eliminate that level of magical flow.

‘But I can’t be satisfied with just that.’

Roel was a world where rewards followed the player’s actions like clockwork.

Therefore…

More perfectly.

More precisely.

More certainly, I must handle everything.

〔Authority Skills are enhanced in response to ‘MAX’ mental strength.〕

Kwaaaaaa──!

As my will grew stronger, the authorities began reacting violently.

Supersense amplified beyond its limits to the extreme. Ritardando gripped and stretched the flow of time even more powerfully.

As if responding to my will pursuing perfection, everything began leaping beyond boundaries.

But.

At the same time, the limits of the human vessel were starkly revealed.

‘Ah…’

It felt like my brain was melting.

Something boiled up inside my head, crushing the inside of my skull. Each nerve burned as if engulfed in flames.

I couldn’t breathe.

My lungs became heavy as if turned to stone, and my heart repeatedly raced as if about to burst, then suddenly slowed as if about to stop.

It was inevitable.

This was never an authority granted to mortals in the first place.

The Elder’s authority possessed tremendous power. A mere human could never bear such strength.

Therefore, most authority skills underwent downgrades. Their output was limited, providing abilities at a controllable level.

But I had broken through those restrictions with a superhuman manifestation of will.

That was why this terrible burden was crushing my entire body.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

No matter how strong one’s mental strength, they cannot escape those aftereffects.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

Even ‘MAX’ mental strength couldn’t withstand that price. My consciousness gradually crumbled, and my will began to break.

‘But…’

Creak-.

I gritted my teeth.

Every time a wave of pain crashed over me, I held onto my consciousness even more tightly.

Every time my awareness scattered, I pulled myself back together with greater force.

‘Endure.’

I rose faster than I could collapse. I reassembled faster than I could shatter into pieces.

The sacred oath.

The shackles I had placed upon myself by swearing to the ancient god. The absolute duty to save the world.

It was not merely a restriction.

A compulsion that made collapse impossible. An absolute will that made surrender impossible.

My duty was not yet finished. I had not yet saved everything.

Then I could not fall here.

I could not succumb to mere pain of this level.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

No threat whatsoever will be able to break you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

What would crumble would be the pain itself, not my mental strength.

What would break would be the limits themselves, not my will.

【Supersense 】

Whoooosh-!

How long did I endure like that?

The absolute power gained by a Sword Master who had lived for eons by eternally abandoning light.

That ability began to open a new dimension of perception to me.

Like black and white becoming color. Like a plane becoming three-dimensional.

My five senses went into overdrive as sensations beyond them began to envelop me.

And then….

Boundaries disappear.

The distinction between matter and mind blurred, and the boundary line between existence and non-existence rippled like waves.

Time and space became entangled and merged into one massive flow.

Even the boundary between myself and others became ambiguous. My recognition of ‘me’ as an individual gradually faded as I became part of the world.

Causality collapsed. Cause and effect existed simultaneously. Past, present, and future met at a single point and swirled together.

The invisible things beyond what could be seen. The silence beyond audible sounds. The void beyond what could be touched….

Finally, they began to reveal their true forms.

The hidden side of the world. Another layer concealed behind reality.

There, everything was connected. Very intricately. Very precisely. And very beautifully.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

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〔Error: Heaven■!̴̛͍̑͊͐̂#̶̨̰̮̣̝̔̔̐͒̍̌̀̎$̸̛̣̓̉͒͘■ #̸̛̪͉͕͍̣̝̗̃͊̓̎̅͘ͅ■law@̴̷̢͖̟̤̲̼͔̥͓̖̤͕̙̆̋̓̈́̐̂̋̇̎͂̕͝ violation■….〕

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〔Error: The Outer Circle strongly opposes the current situation.〕

〔Error: The Outer Circle strongly opposes the current situation.〕

〔Error: The Outer Circle strongly opposes the current situation….〕

* * *

〔Hidden Message: You are being expelled from the Heavenly Realm.〕

〔Hidden Message: Part of player ‘Middle Finger’s memory will be erased.〕

〔Hidden Message: The Pantheon objects.〕

〔Hidden Message: Voting for additional compensation begins.〕

〔Hidden Message: In favor #̵̛̼̟̫̳̬̃̔̆̓̿!̷̰̺͊̂͛$̵̜̲̯̻͖͒̽̎̈́ votes. Against @̷͔̺͍̊̔%̶͉̬͋͛͛̈́͘$̴̗̗̲͊͊͝ votes.〕

〔Hidden Message: The motion has been passed.〕

* * *

“….”

Consciousness gradually returned.

It felt like rising from the bottom of a deep ocean to the surface. The feeling of returning from some distant and vast space to the narrow well of reality.

My memory was hazy.

I remembered crossing some ‘boundary’ and entering an indescribable dimension. But what I saw after that, what I experienced, was completely forgotten.

Like right after waking from a dream. I remembered the fact that I had dreamed, but the content had scattered like mist.

But something remained.

Experience. Sensation. Enlightenment.

I could vaguely guess where that space I had seen was. And I thought I knew why I had been expelled from there.

A realm that mortals should not carelessly set foot in. A space of absolute truth where only gods could dwell.

There I had glimpsed the essence of the world, and simultaneously paid the price for it.

But that wasn’t what was important.

The complex layers.

The hidden side of the world.

After seeing that overly complex and dazzling structure, Batu’s threads that I witnessed again….

Were simply monotonous beyond compare.

It felt like facing an easy arithmetic problem after seeing the truth of the universe.

The structure of threads that had seemed so complex and intricate until just now felt incredibly clear and simple.

‘I can see it.’

Everything came into view at once.

Its weakness.

The critical point of failure that would collapse the entire structure.

The exact spot where everything could be ended with a single cut.

A massive network created by thousands of threads. But among them, there were the most crucial strands.

The main axis that supported the center of the entire structure like pillars holding up a massive building.

If I could cut through all of them simultaneously, a chain reaction would collapse all connections. It meant everything Batu had carefully built up would crumble in an instant.

‘Right there.’

The main axis intersecting in the center of the sky. Indistinguishable from other threads on the surface, but actually the pillars bearing the core.

The moment I understood all of this.

I slowly raised the Feather Sword.

In the stopped time, the blade flashed silver.

〔MP 1/1〕

The last remaining mana flowed into the Feather Sword.

Tick-.

The moment the familiar activation sound echoed in my ears.

The final strike to end everything had begun.

〔MP 0/1〕

Along with a single sword light that cut through the sky.

Kurururu-!

A chain reaction immediately began.

Cracks spread from the severed thread, and thousands of other threads started snapping one after another.

It collapses.

The structure that Puppet Master Batu had carefully built up begins to crumble.

And like a lie…

Thud-.

All the puppets and chimeras went limp like marionettes with cut strings.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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