Solo Swordmaster – Chapter 121

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Let’s rewind a bit.

Before Wei-ling’s jaw dropped in astonishment, shortly after sending Limon the affiliate information, Limon, following the route she provided, arrived at a building bearing the name “Black Dragon Insurance” and immediately sprang into action.

“Let me give you some advice. Don’t dedicate your life to a company…”

KABOOM!

“Who’s barking like a dog?!”

“Gah?!”

Following the sound of a voice, Limon burst through a wall and delivered a swift kick to the back of Ryu Kang-chul’s head, knocking him to the ground.

It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it takedown, a stark contrast to the desperate, drawn-out battles the Black Dragon Insurance guards had been fighting against Ryu Kang-chul’s clones.

“Wh-what?”

“That white hair… Limon Asphelder?!”

“What’s he doing here?!”

But the battered and bruised guards were too stunned to feel relief.

They stared at the suddenly appearing Limon as if they had seen a ghost. Being met with such a reaction after saving them would normally be irritating, but Limon, having no expectations of the Black Dragon Clan, simply ignored them.

He pinned Ryu Kang-chul to the floor with his sword.

Thud!

“Ugh! What… what are you doing?!”

“I’ll be quick, so just shut up.”

“You’re telling me to shut up after turning me into an insect specimen?! Gah?!”

“Tsk, noisy bastard.”

Limon crushed Ryu Kang-chul’s groin, silencing him and making him foam at the mouth. He then paused, considering his next move.

‘Now what?’

Even a Sword Master only had one body. He couldn’t protect all the affiliates alone. Yet, he had confidently declared to Wei-ling that he would handle it.

He had a plan.

‘Severing the Water Moon and Blooming the Flower’s Fragrance won’t work.’

If Ryu Kang-chul’s clones were illusions, Limon could have eliminated them all with a single strike, severing the illusion to sever the reality, the principle behind the Demon Slaying Sword technique, ‘Severing the Water Moon and Blooming the Flower’s Fragrance’ .

But after testing them, he realized they weren’t mere reflections. They were tangible, like mass-produced goods compared to countless reflections in parallel mirrors.

‘I had a hunch.’

Though he had lost the option of a quick and easy solution, Limon wasn’t disappointed.

He had sensed that the clones weren’t illusions when he cut them down.

He just needed confirmation. And he had other methods besides the ‘Severing the Water Moon’ technique.

“Let’s see…”

Limon narrowed his eyes, his normally golden irises now pitch black, and focused on Ryu Kang-chul.

The power of the stars, honed through playing the Black Abyssal Violin, resonated with him.

His Constellation Gazing Eyes activated. If the clones were skill-based, he would see something.

His hunch was correct.

‘This is…’

At first glance, he thought of parasites.

Countless worm-like tendrils wriggled beneath Ryu Kang-chul’s skin, poking out from his pores and orifices, making him look like a writhing nest of insects. But after a moment of observation, Limon realized his mistake.

‘Trees?’

What looked like skin was bark. The wriggling tendrils were roots. Sap flowed instead of blood. An image of a living tree, shaped like a human, overlapped with Ryu Kang-chul’s form.

‘Hmm, this must be the Constellation he’s contracted with. But this…?’

Limon narrowed his eyes.

He had observed many players and their Constellations since gaining the Constellation Gazing Eyes.

But this was only the second time he had seen a player so deeply intertwined with their Constellation, their human form almost obscured.

“Oh?”

He noticed a red tendril extending from Ryu Kang-chul’s tailbone. Following it with his eyes, he saw it stretch beyond the floor, outside the building.

He smirked.

“Look at this.”

Limon stepped on the tendril.

Thump, thump.

It pulsed rhythmically, like a blood vessel connected to a heart. Sensing the pulsation with his heightened senses, Limon chuckled.

This tendril was the key to maintaining the clones, a pipeline supplying energy and the strings of a puppet.

“This is the first time I’ve seen someone so brazenly flaunting their tail.”

It wasn’t entirely unexpected.

The Constellation Gazing Eyes were an unheard-of ability. Like most Constellations Limon had observed, Ryu Kang-chul’s Constellation probably didn’t see the need to hide this tendril.

It was confident that even if a human saw it, they couldn’t harm a Constellation.

The problem was, the only exception to that rule, a “mere human,” had just discovered it, his eyes gleaming with a manic glint.

“You’re dead now, bastard.”

Muttering coldly, Limon drew his sword and focused on the tendril.

Thump, thump.

He traced the flow of immense power pulsating within the tendril.

From the clone to the tendril, from the tendril outwards… the sensation dulled with distance, the pulsation fading. But he persisted.

He sharpened his senses, retracing the faint pulsation, following the fading flow.

100 meters, 500 meters, 1 kilometer… like a skilled angler pinpointing a fish’s location by the vibration of a single line, like when he had pursued a demon to the other side of the world long ago, he extended his senses with the focus of a Sword Master, capable of cutting even a speck of dust, following the invisible flow.

5 kilometers, 10 kilometers, 30 kilometers… He continued to expand his senses, detecting the spreading tendrils, perceiving the countless roots…

“Gotcha.”

Swish!

Limon swiftly decapitated the twitching, half-dead Ryu Kang-chul.

The flow of power dispersed, the Constellation’s energy abandoning the useless husk and retreating along the tendril.

This was the opportunity Limon had been waiting for.

Step, step, step.

Following the flow of power, he took a step. Approaching the root, he took another. Swinging his sword, he took a third.

Three steps, and he stood before another root, another Ryu Kang-chul clone, attacking a different affiliate.

“…Huh?”

The clone, bewildered by Limon’s sudden appearance, having just teleported several kilometers, could only utter a confused sound.

Swish!

Before he could react, Limon’s sword flashed, severing his head.

A death even more swift and insignificant than the first, like an ant crushed under a tank’s treads. But it was only the beginning.

Step, step, step.

Swish, swish, swish.

With every clone destroyed, Limon followed the retreating flow of power along the tendrils, appearing before another clone and cutting it down.

The process became routine, then faster, then almost monotonous, a repetitive task like slicing potatoes on a conveyor belt, except the conveyor belt was a network of tendrils, and the potatoes were Level 80 players.

“What the?!”

“Wait…!”

“Such cheap tricks… Gah!”

“Damn it?!”

Ryu Kang-chul’s clones didn’t just stand there and die. Connected by the tendrils, they sensed the threat and reacted swiftly. But their efforts were futile.

Whether they counterattacked, retreated, or multiplied, they couldn’t escape Limon, who appeared like a ghost along the tendrils, his sword flashing with invisible speed.

And as they were repeatedly cut down, Ryu Kang-chul’s reactions changed.

Initial bewilderment turned to curiosity, then rage, then despair. And finally, a single emotion surfaced in his eyes.

It was an unfamiliar emotion for Ryu Kang-chul, who had always considered himself a predator, toying with life and death, his own included.

“M-monster…!”

He couldn’t shake the terror.

The chilling sword that severed even willpower, the overwhelmingly superior skill, and most of all, the indifferent gaze, as if cutting him down was no more significant than chopping wood, told him that this white-haired man was the true predator, the apex of the food chain, the perfect killing machine.

And Ryu Kang-chul wasn’t the only one who realized it.

“…What just happened?”

“That white hair… Sword Saint?”

“Oh my god… he defeated dozens of our warriors in an instant?”

The Black Dragon Clan members guarding the affiliates, those who had been fighting Ryu Kang-chul, those who had been slaughtered, those who had been mutilated… they all trembled.

They were all in affiliates that had refused the Guardian contract, clans who had dismissed Limon as a relic of the past, an enemy. But witnessing him casually eliminate Ryu Kang-chul, who had driven them to the brink of death, they understood.

They understood what a Sword Master was, how foolish they had been to mock him, what kind of carnage he was capable of, why their ancestors had failed to surpass him for centuries, and that perhaps Li Chingwei’s desperate pursuit of their engagement wasn’t so foolish after all.

Overwhelmed by a burgeoning terror, they were forced to understand.

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