As the last fragments of his consciousness slipped away, a sudden jolt bolted through his mind, burning every last ember of energy within him. His vision darkened, and all thoughts ceased to exist as he could only see another flash of glimpse of memory.
'I'm sorry, Jin…' the voice echoed from his mind was soft yet heavy with sorrow. It wrapped around him like fading warmth, soothing his heart yet cruelly distant.
Jin's face frowned as he couldn't recall or even grasp the picture clearly; only the voice and its shadow remained. The voice pushed his ego aside, and once the slumbering power inside him heard that, it rose from the abyss.
[Mind Sword activated]
The two enemies who strangled Jin froze their actions, paralyzed by a terrifying power that halted even the world itself; a thin, luminous line sliced through the battlefield, stretching endlessly and dividing the world.
Moments lapse eternally as the two of them find their vision split into two halves of reality that shake them to the core.
It was a mind-boggling experience as they saw the world, the atmosphere being cut in a clear, straight line. A terrible chill ran down their bodies, choked them, and made them retreat further back.
As they distanced themselves, the heavy pressure that shredded their flesh into pieces retained its greatness when they saw the black-haired boy stand up. His body was in tatters, charred skin and tearing muscles.
Pain lashed into his being with each breath he took. It sent agony throughout his burned nerves. However, Jin remained standing, eyes locked into the emptiness ahead, seeking something beyond this battlefield.
'What is happening?'. When the robbed man noticed the changing demeanour of the boy, he breathed out the cold air in his lungs. He has never felt this threatened in his entire life, not even when he met his superior, who boasted an overwhelming power.
The wolf couldn't stop growling while the tension in the field rose. His fur stood to no end, wary, and he felt a bit threatened by the boy's presence, which it had toyed with earlier. Its pride as the Terror-rank monster pushed its instinct back and swallowed its ego.
*Awooo!
A great howl that birthed a tremendous hurricane clashed with the nature magic the boy had unleashed, shattered everything in its path and created a small calamity that levelled the east forest.
Knowing that the hurricane was not enough, the wolf pushed all of its strength, and the thundering roar of crimson lightning bathed its body in red as its aura intensified more, reaching even King-rank monsters.
'This stupid wolf?!'. The robbed person knit his brows in annoyance as he stepped back from the shredder field and used all the robbed to its full function. It has a stealth property and a good shield to protect his body from harm.
His body slipped between the two clashes and hid beneath the shadows, blending in the background unnoticed.
The swirling wind surrounding the wolf attracted a tremendous amount of black miasma from the place; it would later be conjured and condensed into a single bead, which the monster would swallow.
When the wolf swallowed it, it officially would step into a King-rank monster.
*****
Different from Dragon, who was born as a King-rank monster. For a monster to undergo a gruelling process to become a King-rank monster, it had to undergo a certain phase, which is gaining wisdom.
The wisdom itself will be gifted by the world or with the miasma, which is part of the ecosystem, for it was born from the monster and had a purpose: to birth another monster that will threaten all Living beings in the world, creating a never-ending cycle.
A violent wind, coupled with merry crimson bolts dancing in the mix, accompanied the wolf as it engaged in its evolution.
*****
All of a sudden, the world dimmed, drowning him in ecstatic silence. Then, from the void deep in his mind, a golden letter appeared, forming a choice which always popped out at the crucial moment of his life.
[String of Fate activates]
What would you like to do?
Don't give up! Give up and let destiny swallow you.
'...Like hell, I will ever give up!'. A platinum light blinded his consciousness for a second as Jin picked the first choice.
In his vague memories, he recalled those hellish days and gruelling training he did every single day for almost a century, yet it left him with a grief that split his heart apart within the gap that kept getting wider and wider the more he tried to recall it.
Jin clenched the Katana in his hand and saw the enemy before him. With the destruction it had caused him, Jin lowered his posture and focused his mind.
The wolf snorted with clenching jaws and snapped its maw open, creating multiple blades of wind that shot toward the wounded boy. However, the boy calmly deals with them quickly as he draws the blade and cuts everything that threatens his life.
It also noticed a slight change within the blade: The earlier silver light had turned pale green. Not wanting the process of its evolution to be interrupted, the wolf sent a violent whirlwind and hundreds of slashes at the boy's side.
Jin steadied his breath as he saw the incoming barrage. Blades of wind whistled on him, whispering a death theme for those who blocked its path. Jin tightly clenched the Katana before stepping up his gears.
He cuts the first wind blade that comes up, then dodges the other one before cutting another more while slowly keeping track of his footwork. Each time he moves a step, Jin cuts more than dozens of wind slashes while keeping his track right.
'More… This is still not enough! Move faster like a swift wind that travelled a distance with a single blink, sharper like a compressed wind that could cut the atmosphere, and focus on your enemy before you!'. Jin's eyes blazed with a single enmity, which was to finish the enemy before him.
[Mind Sword activated]
[Black Heaven style swordsmanship - Wind Roar]
Jin took his first step, and 'boom' shot forward like an arrow. His hands kept cutting the wind slashes that came his way while ignoring some that didn't pose too much risk. Several slashes tear his skin, letting blood flow out.
From his hand, Jin could feel the tremendous force he had collected from the violent wind and mana surrounding the place. Thanks to its current condition, the Katana blade had undergone a tempering process, gleaming in ferocious green light.
A clattering sound rang inside his ears, followed by a terrible shock that jolted his hands and the trembling blade. Jin gritted his teeth and kept swinging his blade further, pushing forward beyond his limitations.
Little by little, his battle-hardened senses return, and Jin feels exhilarated despite having his clash with swirling death blazing in his chest.
*Awooo! A thundering howl shook the place; it burned all the air in the atmosphere as it rained down toward Jin's place.
One flash of crimson bolts seared his right cheek, causing his flesh to burn. Jin halted his advance and saw hundreds of crimson bolts hovering between them as they aimed at him.
'...Block? No, there is not enough time. Dodge or deflect? It was so fast that my eyes couldn't see it! The choice is?...'. Jin's gaze met straight with the wolf, who opened its elongated mouth, trying to swallow the black bead as big as an adult human's head.
'...Forward!!!' He inhaled a deep breath, and soon, his vision distorted, tainted with a bit of red, and he could taste iron clogging his throat.
[Elemental Enhancement]
Green aura began accumulating in Jin's body; it pushed him to the limitation of his current physique. Even though his body is mutated, taking a huge amount of raw, unrefined mana was like poison to his current one.
The crimson bolts crashed, and Jin, who managed to block the bolts aimed at his vital area, jolted forward and arrived before the wolf's range. He cut open the wind swirling around the wolf and welcomed its opening jaw.
'What?!'. Jin's brain halted as he saw a compressed ball of plasma that shone dangerously in a mixture of green and red.
Whether conscious or not, Jin instinctively clenched his hands and poured a large amount of mana into his blade, making it shinier in green with a golden mix.
Not only the mana in his body, but Jin also sucked the surrounding mana, including the magic he cast and the hurricane the wolf manifested; all of that, he compressed to his Katana blade.
Jin's hand trembled furiously as his nerves, which couldn't contain the great energy of unrefined mana, started to burst apart, tearing his flesh away as his body was smeared by blood. However, Jin prevailed; he had his priority straight.
"Aaaaaahhh!" he thrust his blade, which was leaking out a cracking sound. At the same time, the plasma bolts began to launch as they clashed in a point-blank range.
All sound disappeared as the whole atmosphere and time got sucked into the two swirling chaos before a loud explosion happened, blasting everything in its surrounding to bits. Trees were uprooted, land gouged, and even all living beings that witnessed it in the south trembled upon its greatness.
"...Jin?!".
Iris, who got swept away by the blast, had to halt her advance as she heard the loud explosion followed by huge shockwaves that caused the dust to dim the environment.
Her breath started to palpitate, and she couldn't hide the gut-wrenched feeling that crushed her mind right now, witnessing the same horror twice.
"No?!".