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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: The Black Curtain
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Li Chingwei wore a peculiar expression.
As if suspecting she'd misheard.
Or perhaps intrigued by the unexpected remark.
She blinked at Rimon, tilting her head slightly as she asked,
"Are you serious?"
"Sounds pretty insane, right?"
Rimon chuckled.
In this Iron Age, a monarch was synonymous with absolute power.
Superhumans who could seize even a nation's head of state in their grasp and face down an entire army single-handedly.
And yet, one of them—the Infinite Monarch—had been a puppet.
It wasn't something anyone in their right mind would say.
If Yuna Kyung were still alive, she'd have shouted that the team leader had finally lost it, and Rimon would have smacked her while questioning his own sanity.
But Rimon didn't take back his words.
He simply continued in a matter-of-fact tone.
"You might not know this, but this was actually my first time fighting a monarch."
"I imagine so."
Li Chingwei accepted it as natural.
Unless war had broken out, there'd been no reason for Rimon to clash with a monarch.
He wasn't the type to go crushing the new era's sprouts on purpose, and the monarchs had no gain in battling a hero from the past.
If such a fight had happened, the Sword Master's standing wouldn't have fallen this far.
"Honestly, I'd been curious for a while. Just how amazing are these monarchs that I'm treated like yesterday's news?"
When he fought Lee Cheongi.
The reason Rimon had focused so obsessively on probing and testing.
It wasn't just because he was intrigued by Lee Cheongi stealing and mimicking his swordsmanship.
He genuinely wanted to know.
The monarchs, absolute rulers of this era.
What their true power was like.
No matter how much Rimon had decided to adapt to the flow of the times, that only made him more curious about the strength of the monarchs reigning at its pinnacle.
"So I fought the Infinite Monarch and was shocked."
At first, he thought the man was holding back.
Midway, a growing sense of incongruity set in.
And in the end, he realized the truth.
"I never imagined a so-called monarch would be that weak."
The pinnacle of all players dominating this era—superhumans who conquered impenetrable dungeon depths and reached level 100.
Monarchs.
They were surprisingly fragile.
"The monarchs are weak?"
As if she'd never expected such an absurd assessment.
Rimon shrugged lightly at Li Chingwei, her eyes wide open.
"To be precise, they fell short of my expectations."
A skill that steals swordsmanship?
If he'd stolen even the Sword Principles and Sword Intent, Rimon might have acknowledged him.
No, honestly, he'd assumed that much was a given.
That was the caliber of monarch Rimon had anticipated.
That's why he'd pushed Lee Cheongi to the brink, checking if there was anything more to show right up to the last moment.
But Lee Cheongi never truly grasped the Anti-Demonic Dragon-Slaying Sword, ultimately collapsing after spamming skills.
"Well, objectively speaking, he wasn't that pathetic..."
Lee Cheongi wasn't weak.
His ability to wield thousands of skills freely was undeniably cheat-like.
Especially those thousand skills at the end—they were worth deploying the Anti-Demonic Dragon-Slaying Sword's essence against.
But compared to Rimon's expectations?
"Somehow, it doesn't quite measure up to being called absolute."
The Fairy Queen and Word Sorceress who ruled the Golden Age.
The Grand Witch and Saint who reigned in the Silver Age.
The Seven Dragons who conquered the Bronze Age.
The Sword Masters who shone in the Heroes Age.
Every era had its absolutes.
The throne simply changed hands as new powers emerged with the shifting times.
And no matter the era...
Absolutes shared one trait.
They possessed the power to overwhelm all absolutes from previous eras!
The Seven Dragons had proven it by devouring incarnations, and the first Sword Master, the Sword Emperor, earned the title by slaying those dragons.
But regrettably, Lee Cheongi lacked the strength to surpass the previous era's absolute, the Sword Master.
At best, on par with the Grand Witch.
Or maybe a notch above the Word Sorceress.
Rimon's cold assessment was that he couldn't even handle the Seven Dragons, let alone a Sword Master.
Of course, that was still impressive.
But compared to previous absolutes with no equals, it was no wonder Rimon tilted his head in doubt, as he'd put it.
"It's baffling how they even got recognized as absolutes in the first place."
That unease had taken root.
He'd accepted the flow of the era as natural.
Was it truly a seamless shift for ten monarchs to ascend as absolutes?
Had they bypassed the rightful order—clashing with the previous era's absolute, Rimon himself—and still claimed the title by mere chance?
That was the seed of suspicion.
"That's when I started wondering. What gave them the nerve to strut around as absolutes? What made them think they were stronger than me?"
Maybe Lee Cheongi just had a bad matchup against Rimon.
Unlike others who wielded thousands of skills, he lacked unique skills beyond 『Skill Replication』, making him an outlier among monarchs.
But Rimon could declare it confidently.
Someone who couldn't overcome even a matchup disadvantage had no business being called absolute.
At least, not by his understanding.
In that sense, his suspicions were justified.
Enough to wring every last drop from a dying Lee Cheongi.
"But the guy himself knew next to nothing about the reason."
Rimon chuckled.
Lee Cheongi was born in the Iron Age.
He'd grown up taking it as common sense that monarchs were absolutes.
Asking him why they were so weak wouldn't yield a proper answer.
In fact, he'd made an incredibly expressive face upon hearing the question—for multiple reasons.
That alone confirmed it.
No matter which other monarch he grabbed, he wouldn't get the answers he sought.
They were players, after all.
Accustomed to accepting and using what was given.
"But prying into this and that revealed something unexpected."
"What might that be?"
"He never intended to kill me in the first place."
"...After blowing up a building and mobilizing hundreds of high-level players to capture the Sword Duke?"
"Ah, that part was meant to kill me. The execution was just hilarious."
Rimon giggled.
He tossed the used towel aside and continued lightly.
"The key point is he only aimed to force me into retirement at most."
When Rimon crushed Seo Yongchan, Lee Cheongi's brother-in-law, he'd ordered measures against Rimon.
But that was limited to pressuring the PAB to fire him.
No plans for treason charges or traps to kill him existed at that stage.
It wasn't wariness of Rimon.
If anything, the opposite.
He saw no need to deal with an obsolete Sword Master.
"Then something happened, and he decided he needed to properly eliminate me."
"What happened?"
"Yeah. There was something he's been desperately hunting lately, and he found out the person holding it had met me."
It might have gone to Rimon.
Or at least, it could hinder acquiring it.
Harboring such suspicions, Lee Cheongi felt the need to dispose of Rimon beyond mere dismissal.
"Add in his subordinate's overzealous loyalty and Kang Jeongsu's overreaction, and things snowballed on their own... Eh, not important, moving on."
Rimon shrugged.
He roughly combed his disheveled hair with his hand and spoke.
"The crux is, without that meeting, I might never have crossed swords with the Infinite Monarch."
Of course, it was just a hypothesis.
Not something he could assert definitively.
He might have stormed Infinity Guild in rage after being fired.
Or Lee Cheongi might have targeted him later if he became a nuisance.
Two tigers can't share one mountain, and if Lee Cheongi aspired to absolute status, collision with Rimon was inevitable.
But... was it truly inevitable?
"What a coincidence."
If it had been anyone else, he might have chalked it up to bad luck.
But the instincts of a Sword Master who'd lived eons and weathered countless events caught the subtle dissonance.
"If I hadn't fallen so low and been dismissed as obsolete, no one would have dared charge at me so recklessly."
The Sword Master's decline.
Was it truly just the era's flow?
Or had someone deliberately eroded his position?
"If people hadn't exalted them as absolutes, Lee Cheongi wouldn't have pulled such a reckless stunt."
The monarchs called absolutes.
Was their overconfidence the era's fault?
Or had someone overhyped them, inflating their egos?
"And that meeting happening right after my clash with the Infinite Monarch? Suspicious."
It was too coincidental to ignore.
Individually dismissible issues piling up unluckily.
"Could all be coincidence."
Rimon didn't dismiss simple misfortune.
Over long years, such clusters of bad luck happen too often to count on fingers.
"Though it's the kind of thing you couldn't pull off if you tried."
The Sword Master's fall and monarchs' rise spanned decades—a societal phenomenon.
Not easily engineered on a whim.
Not without transcendental power to warp the world's order.
Or a massive faction investing vast funds and manpower over years—barely achievable even then.
"At first, I suspected transcendent beings beyond humans..."
A suspicion only possible after gaining the ability to see constellations.
The mockery and hostility from them in the trap fueled it.
Yet when interrogating Lee Cheongi, Rimon only warded off their gazes.
The enmity was too overt.
If a true mastermind was puppeteering monarchs covertly and pitting him against Lee Cheongi...
Would they reveal themselves so easily?
Wouldn't they hide their malice to the end?
"But I know very well who's confident in such schemes—better than some middling god or constellation."
So Rimon chuckled.
A force wielding immense influence across society.
Skilled not just at plotting from shadows but harboring deep grudge against him.
A faction that had fought the so-called absolute for centuries and stubbornly survived.
Rimon knew them all too well.
"In that sense, let me ask."
Cha-ang!
It happened in an instant.
Rimon drawing his sword.
And casually probing for confirmation.
"Was it you?"
A cold face devoid of any mirth.
Golden eyes sunken in eerie calm.
With his sword at Li Chingwei's throat, Rimon asked again in a languid voice.
"I'm asking if your clan is the mastermind behind this. Princess of the Black Dragon Clan."
As if ready to sever her head based on the answer.
Rimon exuded chilling killing intent.
His demeanor was utterly ferocious—so much that any ordinary girl would wet herself in terror.
But Li Chingwei, the target of the blade, showed no fear.
She met Rimon's gaze squarely.
A faint smile on her lips.
And replied in a clear voice.
"Yes."
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