Swoosh—
Dong Bong-su's sword shot up toward the sky once again. The sound of it slicing through the air was light.
Thunk—
However, the result was anything but light. The Novice's Sword embedded itself squarely into the crown of the last surviving congratulatory guest's head. Already unconscious from the terror of falling, he transformed entirely into experience points.
Whoosh—
Level up once more.
Intense light scattered from his body, and the dark, damp space below the cliff temporarily brightened.
Dong Bong-su quietly watched the light spread outward. As expected, it didn't reach as far as it had at night. Following the cliff upward, when it reached the sunlit area, it simply merged with the sunlight. A faint afterglow remained, but it was impossible to imagine it piercing through the clouds at mid-mountain level and climbing all the way to the cliff's edge.
Thud. Sluuurp—
Dong Bong-su pulled the sword from the corpse. Even as he did, his gaze remained fixed on the cliff top throughout.
'There are still some left.'
Prey.
Good prey that would become experience points. They were still there. An opportunity obtained with difficulty—it wouldn't be lost through a moment's carelessness, would it?
Above all, Tang O still hadn't jumped down. Dong Bong-su was waiting for him.
No, no.
'I should say I'm looking forward to it.'
A wounded beast cornered would surely jump down below the cliff to save its young. Though injured, if he killed him, he could achieve tremendous 'power leveling.'
Thunk, thunk, thunk….
While waiting for him, Dong Bong-su's sword repeatedly sliced through the air. The congratulatory guests accelerated to terminal velocity couldn't possibly dodge the Novice's Sword he threw. Not only was it difficult to open their eyes due to the powerful wind pressure, but most had already lost consciousness.
The terminal velocity heading downward. The speed of the sword Dong Bong-su threw upward.
When the Novice's Sword actually struck their heads, the relative velocity vector was truly tremendous, and the force went without saying.
Thunk—
Once again, with a light sound, one body became a sword skewer and fell to the ground.
Paradoxically, by Dong Bong-su's sword piercing through their bodies, they were able to preserve their corpses intact. Had they simply hit the ground, they certainly would have been smashed to pieces. However, whether they could be preserved intact to the very end remained to be seen. Dong Bong-su still had more plans remaining after all.
"98."
Dong Bong-su muttered lowly, counting the next number.
Only two more now.
Class change was right before his eyes.
But after quite a long time passed after that, no more free experience points fell. Nevertheless, Dong Bong-su still held his position.
'Not yet, not yet.'
Within those lowly repeated words was faith in Tang O. Rather than believing in Tang O himself, he believed in Tang O's strength and his resoluteness.
If it were him….
'He wouldn't easily fall to Do Heo-ok.'
Moreover, he wouldn't simply let Tang Hwa and Namgung Hye be captured by Do Heo-ok either.
Then the final move he could make was, as expected, one. Just as he had done until now, just as others had done.
Dong Bong-su continued to wait.
A long while later.
That faith was ultimately rewarded.
Flap-flap-flap—
At some point, a faint sound of cutting through air was heard, and simultaneously, something rapidly falling was caught in his pupils. Its color was brown, and the sound of striking the air was the sound of robe hems rapidly fluttering.
A middle-aged man in a brown robe. Even without checking, it was certain.
A brief but intense encounter. It was Tang O.
Clang—!
Dong Bong-su drew his sword again and took his stance. In that brief moment, Tang O had descended dozens of meters more. His falling posture was the same as the previous survivors—head toward the ground, legs toward the sky.
However, there were a few differences. Tang O wasn't falling alone but was holding someone in his arms. Though, contrary to Dong Bong-su's expectation, it was one person rather than two, which was a notable point. Another difference was that despite the tremendous wind pressure, Tang O had his eyes wide open, looking straight down.
Naturally, Dong Bong-su and Tang O came face to face with each other.
***
Tang O was shocked.
'Tang Sam!?'
The fierce updraft struck his eyes painfully as if they would burst, but his vision had no particular problem. At first he was shocked that there was a survivor, and then he was shocked that the person was Tang Sam.
Tang Sam, that is, Dong Bong-su, had already returned to his original appearance through leveling up, so there was no way Tang O wouldn't recognize him.
Even in this desperate moment, the two words 'how' and 'why' were engraved in Tang O's mind.
'How are you here?'
'Why are you gripping that sword like that?'
Of course, he couldn't hear an answer.
Swoosh—!
Instead, Dong Bong-su's answer to Tang O's questioning gaze was….
The Novice's Sword.
Quite naturally so.
The sword that left Dong Bong-su's hand flew toward him at tremendous speed. Tang O didn't know it, but all of this was merely happening as already determined.
"...!"
The startled Tang O hastily unleashed palm force to strike away the flying sword.
However, his body wouldn't listen. Through the long fierce battle, his True Energy had already run dry, and the wounds he'd received from Transformed Shadow and Water Shadow were also serious. Moreover, as his body was accelerated, his arms were also accelerating downward. His hands pointing upward couldn't even move downward at all. To unleash palm techniques, he needed to bring his elbows as close to his body as possible, but that was impossible, so unleashing palm techniques was impossible from the start.
Death.
It had been predetermined.
Tang O had abandoned thoughts of survival from the moment he jumped down the cliff anyway. He had thrown himself only with the desire to save Tang Hwa.
Perhaps if he sacrificed himself, wouldn't he be able to save his granddaughter? That thought.
However, that plan was now thwarted, and an unexpected crisis struck doubly. Tang O hurriedly twisted his body over as much as he could.
That moment!
Thud—!
The cold blade dug into the back of his head.
Squelch! Shluck!
The sword immediately pierced through Tang O's head, penetrated between his mouth and nose—his philtrum—and shot toward the sky. And at that moment, Tang O experienced a final lucidity. At the same time, much of the acceleration applied to his body by the force in the sword was negated.
Tang O squeezed out all his remaining True Origin Energy and shot Tang Hwa high into the sky. Palm techniques that weren't possible with True Energy alone became possible when pouring out True Origin Energy.
Thanks to this, Tang Hwa's body could decelerate, mostly negating the speed that had been accelerating until then, but conversely, Tang O's body plummeted toward the ground even faster.
Whooooom—!
Tang O's body, monstrously accelerated, plunged rapidly.
He fell so quickly that his body reached the ground where Dong Bong-su stood before the sound could even travel there. This meant Tang O's body had become even faster than the speed of sound, which in turn meant the True Origin Energy Tang O had poured out at the last moment was tremendous.
Dong Bong-su urgently threw his body aside to avoid Tang O's corpse.
Thud—!
"Grandfather!"
The moment Tang O, unified with the sword, embedded into the ground, Tang Hwa, who had witnessed it precisely from midair, cried out.
Along with that, the final lucidity that had appeared in Tang O's eyes vanished, and holy light poured brilliantly from Dong Bong-su's body.
Ten times.
Dong Bong-su, having defeated Tang O, had achieved a whopping 10 level ups.
However, Dong Bong-su found this strange. He had thought he would level up far more from killing Tang O.
Ten steps of level ups. Of course it was tremendous progress, but it fell short of expectations.
"Too few."
He approached Tang O's shattered corpse. And then he could soon understand. Tang O's completely crushed body had been on the verge of death from the start. What he had done was merely deliver the final blow. Even then, it seemed experience point distribution had occurred as Tang O saved Tang Hwa with his True Origin Energy.
"Is this what they call 'last hitting?'"
He didn't enjoy games so he didn't know the details, but he seemed to have heard something called that somewhere. The terminology didn't matter anyway.
If that was the case, he was reasonably satisfied.
If he 'power leveled' this much from killing Tang O who was dying anyway, wasn't that enough?
Dong Bong-su paid no more attention to the dead Tang O.
Thud.
Tang Hwa finally fell to the ground. Thanks to Tang O's sacrifice, she was able to descend safely to the ground. Though she didn't land properly due to the light that had erupted from Dong Bong-su's body.
Dong Bong-su merely watched Tang Hwa stagger to her feet. He just stood there quietly.
Tang Hwa stood up and shook her head vigorously. She probably hadn't fully recovered from the shock of falling yet.
Her hand touching her forehead was stained red with Tang O's blood. Because she and Tang O had fallen from the same position, it couldn't be helped.
"Ah! G-Grandfather!? Sob!"
The first thing she did after coming to her senses was to embrace Tang O's fragments and cry.
Then she saw the Novice's Sword protruding through Tang O's mouth—or what she thought was probably that part.
She jumped in shock and raised her head.
Naturally, her eyes met Dong Bong-su's.
He was quietly watching her from a distance of about 2 meters. He appeared so composed that it looked as if the two had been together from the start.
However, Tang Hwa couldn't be that way.
"Y-You! How are you here!?"
An entirely expected reaction.
Cliché. Dong Bong-su could of course predict Tang Hwa's very next reaction as well.
"Why...? Why!? Grandfather?"
Step.
Instead of a formulaic answer, Dong Bong-su simply took one step toward her.