Assault
by Afuhfuihgs
Thanks to Jin Sian-nim leaving a trace of the world in my head, I was able to create a passage to the world a few years later. Although I couldn’t say a final goodbye, I’m sure I’ll be forgiven with the high-quality information I left under the pillow. Thinking that, I entered the passage, but I couldn’t help but be bewildered by a view completely different from what I was used to seeing in passages.
Passages to other worlds usually felt like passages in an aquarium with the universe as the background. But what I saw in front of me now was a place where countless passages overlapped, looking like a maze. I was bewildered by the incredibly complex appearance of the passages, but since I was already inside, I couldn’t turn back.
With no choice but to walk forward, I suddenly felt as if gravity had reversed, and I was standing upside down in a passage that felt like I had taken a portal. My vision was upside down, but gravity was normal. As I was wondering what the hell was going on, I saw someone running through the passage in the distance.
By the time my eyes followed the person running through the passage, they had already moved to another place and disappeared. However, I could confirm that the person running was a large man with blonde hair. There was something vaguely familiar yet unfamiliar about his back, which was strangely unsettling. It felt like a mosquito bite in a place that was hard to reach.
But soon the itch was resolved. Someone else started running through the passage. This time, it was running straight towards me from the passage right below me, so I could see their face. The person running through the passage wasn’t Roel. It was me. Because I rarely see my own back, it felt familiar yet unfamiliar.
I, who was running through the passage, disappeared again somewhere. Could it be that the Ross from another world was using the passage? As I waited for a moment while thinking, I saw me running through the passage again in the distance. Whether he couldn’t see me from over there, his gaze was directed forward. I shouted loudly, but I couldn’t stop him from running.
Scratching my cheek, I ran through the passage. I thought that if I reached the end of the passage, I would move somewhere, so I might accidentally overlap with the passage or be able to chase after him. I ran through the passage for a long time, feeling as if gravity was changing arbitrarily and sometimes my body was stretching enormously, but I stopped walking with a strange feeling and looked at the passage again.
The me running through the passage increased. I could see countless me running in countless passages. Something felt off. At first, I thought that the one running through the passage might be the Ross from another world… but I realized that all the Rosses running through the passage looked exactly like me.
Like being infinitely copied in a mirror, Rosses who looked exactly like me were repeating the act of running through the passage. Just looking at it made me feel nauseous for some reason. My head was confused by the sudden situation. The urge to keep running made my heart pound.
Just as I was about to run towards the passage again, another passage above me suddenly collapsed. Before I could even grasp the situation, Jin Sian-nim’s voice echoed in my head.
[What you see is fake. That bastard has already read the causality of the universe! Get out of the trap immediately!]
“What the…?”
I saw another passage collapsing again. It wasn’t collapsing on its own. A huge hand that appeared from somewhere was breaking the passage. It was a bizarrely shaped hand. It looked like a human hand, but there were two eyeballs between the fingers, and something that looked like human lips was visible on the back of the hand.
“…!”
I made eye contact with the eyeballs between the fingers. But for some reason, I didn’t feel any danger. A strangely familiar feeling. Then, the lips on the back of the hand moved, and Jin Sian-nim’s voice was heard in my head.
[I’ll break the fake passages, so find the real one!]
Could it be that the person controlling that hand is Jin Sian-nim? If it’s Jin Sian-nim, who has reached the realm of the Archmage, it might be possible. As Jin Sian-nim’s hand moved, several passages were destroyed.
Countless me falling from the destroyed passages were crushed like bugs stuck in the passage and pressed by fingers. No matter how hard I looked around, there was no way to figure out what the real passage that Jin Sian-nim was talking about was. They all looked like the same passage copied and pasted.
As I was watching Jin Sian-nim’s hand, which was diligently destroying other passages, I discovered one passage in the distance that wasn’t running and seemed to be looking at me as if it had stopped. With a hopeful heart, I raised my hand, and the me over there raised his hand as if following suit.
“Found it!”
It felt like finding a real mirror in a sea of fake mirrors. As soon as I recognized that passage as the real one, the passage that didn’t exist suddenly stretched out as if a path was connected. Realizing that this was the path to the real passage, I started running forward.
The passage I was running through suddenly twisted in a strange direction. Like modifying the road to move customers in the desired direction in a game that decorates amusement parks, the passage was changed to go away from the passage that I recognized as real.
“The path has changed!”
As I shouted, stopping running urgently, Jin Sian-nim’s hand came and broke the nearby passage. Then, as if nothing had happened, the twisted passage disappeared, and the original path was restored. As I ran through the passage again, Jin Sian-nim’s hand went ahead and broke the passages.
[Don’t stop, keep running!]
Just as the end of the passage began to appear, Jin Sian-nim’s hand, which was approaching to destroy another passage, suddenly split into two with a *jjeoeok-* and exploded. As I blankly stared at the eyeballs flying somewhere in a parabola, I felt someone’s gaze in the passage that Jin Sian-nim’s hand was trying to destroy.
Although the distance was far, I could feel that the Ross in that passage was looking at me-no, he had the same blonde hair, but the clothes he was wearing were different. I couldn’t see his face because he was far away, but decisively, the fact that he was holding a greatsword instead of a spear made me sure that it wasn’t me. I muttered in a hollow voice.
“Roel…?”
I saw the greatsword being raised above his shoulder in the distance. In an instant, a strong survival instinct awakened all the nerves in my body. At the same time as materializing the Shadow Spear in my hand and using the Breathless Hwado, I fixed my gaze on Roel and ran towards the end of the passage.
At the same time as Roel’s shoulder went down, a pure white flash appeared. The passages between Roel and me disappeared into the flash as if they had been annihilated without leaving a trace. There wasn’t enough time to reach the end of the passage. Then I had no choice but to block it. I clenched the Shadow Spear with both hands with all my might and tried to block the attack that Roel fired.
“Keuheup…!”
[Authority – Combat Continuation is activated.]
[Berserker effect is activated.]
I gathered all my strength by drawing on Breathless Hwado and mana, but I couldn’t completely block the attack that Roel simply fired by swinging his greatsword. I barely managed to twist the attack, but the Shadow Spear, unable to withstand the destructive power, shattered, and I was eventually cut on the left side of my neck.
“Keheuk, keup… kulleok, kulleo-eok…!”
My throat was filled with blood. Combat Continuation was activated, but the neck that Roel cut was empty as if it had never existed in the first place. I reflexively reached for where my neck used to be, but I could feel the vibration in my palm from the endlessly gushing blood, indicating a significant amount of bleeding.
Seeing Roel raising his greatsword above his shoulder again, I ran blindly towards the end of the passage. This time, I didn’t even look at Roel, but only looked at the end of the passage, clutching my neck. Finally, at the same time as the flash covered me, I was able to reach the end of the passage.
■■□
“Keuheuk, kuheup… kulleok, kulleok!!!”
As soon as I came out of the passage, I spat out the blood that had filled my throat onto the ground. The bleeding from my neck didn’t stop. I had lost so much blood that my eyes hurt. Something was preventing the wound from regenerating. I was about to raise my hand to at least reduce the amount of bleeding when I belatedly realized. My left arm was gone.
“…God damn it.”
I quickly turned my head to check my surroundings. It was dawn with the moon in the sky, in the streets of the capital. In my fading consciousness, I realized what I could do right now. The thing preventing the wound from regenerating was the unique magical ability of Roel’s Holy Sword. I had to get rid of it.
With my remaining arm, I took out the Spear of Destruction from the space warehouse. I drew on the power of destruction and brought it to the wound on my neck. I could feel something invisible pushing the blade away from the wound, like magnets repelling each other. But the Spear of Destruction had the power to break magic and barriers.
As I broke the magic existing on the wound with the power of destruction, the flesh on my neck filled up in an instant. Similarly, I attached the Spear of Destruction to the remaining part of my severed left arm to regenerate my arm. Thanks to Combat Continuation, I saved my life, but the penalty would soon come.
This world was a world that flowed according to the original story. If I lost consciousness on the street with Ross’s face, the situation would obviously become complicated. At the same time as getting up from my seat, a good idea came to my mind.
There was no time. The battle was over, so I didn’t know when the penalty would come. I hurriedly put the Spear of Destruction in the space warehouse, and I ran blindly to the potion shop where Modiste’s secret hideout was located.
The owner, who was always pretending to doze off, stuck to the wall with surprised eyes when I, covered in blood, entered the store in the middle of the night. Ignoring the owner’s reaction, I headed to the back door, and as soon as I arrived at the small room that was Modiste’s reception area, I shouted urgently.
“Estelle, help me-“
I couldn’t finish my sentence and lost consciousness as it was. The penalty of Combat Continuation had been activated.
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