Chapter 61. The Beginning and the End
***
Swoosh-.
Dong Bong-su's sword once again shot up into the sky. The sound of it cutting through the wind was crisp.
Thud-.
However, the result was by no means light. The novice's sword was driven straight into the crown of the last surviving celebrant. Already unconscious from the terror of falling, he was cleanly turned into experience points.
Hwaak-.
Once again, a level-up.
A brilliant light scattered around Dong Bong-su's body, and the dark, damp space beneath the cliff was briefly illuminated.
Dong Bong-su quietly watched the light spread. As expected, the light did not reach as far as it had at night. It climbed along the cliff, but upon reaching a place where sunlight shone, it simply blended into it. A faint afterglow remained, but it was unimaginable that it would pierce through the clouds halfway up the mountain and reach the top of the cliff.
Tuk. Swoosh-.
Dong Bong-su pulled the sword out of the corpse's body. Even then, his gaze never left the top of the cliff.
'There are still some left.'
Prey.
And good prey that would become experience points. They were still there. A hard-earned opportunity. Wouldn't it be troublesome to miss it due to a moment of carelessness?
Above all, Tang Wu had not jumped yet. Dong Bong-su was waiting for him.
No, no.
'I should say I'm looking forward to it.'
A wounded beast cornered to the edge would definitely jump off the cliff to save its young. Even if he was injured, killing him would surely result in a tremendous 'power leveling'.
Thud, thud, thud...….
While waiting for him, Dong Bong-su's sword kept slicing through the air. The celebrants, accelerated all the way to terminal velocity, could never dodge the novice's sword he threw. The powerful wind pressure made it hard to even open their eyes, and most of them had already lost consciousness.
The terminal velocity toward the bottom.
The speed of the sword Dong Bong-su threw upward.
The relative velocity vector when the novice's sword actually reached their heads was tremendous, and the force was beyond description.
Thud-.
Once again, along with a crisp sound, a body fell to the ground skewered by the sword.
Paradoxically, because Dong Bong-su's sword pierced their bodies, they were able to be preserved intact, at least as corpses. If they had fallen directly, they would surely have been smashed to pieces. Still, whether they could be preserved intact until the very end remained to be seen. After all, Dong Bong-su still had more plans left.
"98."
Dong Bong-su muttered quietly and counted the next number.
Now, only two remained.
A class change was right in front of him.
But even after quite a long time passed, no more free experience fell from above. Even so, Dong Bong-su continued to hold his position.
'Not yet, not yet.'
In that quiet murmur was his trust in Tang Wu. Rather than trusting Tang Wu himself, he trusted Tang Wu's strength and decisiveness.
If it were him...
'He wouldn't be easily dealt with by Do Heo-ok.'
And he also wouldn't just let Tang Hua and Namgung Hye be captured by Do Heo-ok.
If that was the case, the final move he could make was still only one. Just as he had done so far, just as others had done.
Dong Bong-su kept waiting.
After a long time.
That trust was finally rewarded.
Parararak-.
At some point, a faint sound of tearing through the air was heard, and at the same time something rapidly falling was caught in his pupils. Its color was brown, and the sound of it cutting the air was like the hem of a long robe flapping violently.
A middle-aged man wearing a brown long robe. Even without checking, it was obvious.
A short but intense encounter. It was Tang Wu.
Chang-!
Dong Bong-su drew his sword again and took a stance. In that brief moment, Tang Wu descended several dozen more meters. His falling 모습 was just like the previous survivors: head toward the ground, legs toward the sky.
However, there were a few differences. Tang Wu was not falling alone, but holding someone in his arms. But unlike Dong Bong-su's expectation, it was not two, but only one, which was unusual. Another difference was that, despite the tremendous wind pressure, Tang Wu had his eyes wide open and was staring straight down.
Naturally, Dong Bong-su and Tang Wu ended up facing each other.
***
Tang Wu was shocked.
'Tang Sam!?'
The fierce updraft slammed into his eyes, making them feel like they were about to burst, but his vision itself was not affected. At first, he was surprised that there was a survivor, and then he was surprised that the person was Tang Sam.
Tang Sam, that is, Dong Bong-su, had already regained his original appearance due to leveling up, so there was no way Tang Wu would fail to recognize him.
Even in this life-and-death moment, two words were carved into Tang Wu's mind: 'how' and 'why'.
How are you here?
Why are you holding a sword like that?
Of course, he could not hear the answers.
Pat-!
Instead, Dong Bong-su's answer to Tang Wu's questioning gaze was...….
The novice's sword.
Most naturally so.
The sword that left Dong Bong-su's hand flew toward him at tremendous speed. Tang Wu did not know, but all of this was merely happening as already decided.
"...!"
Startled, Tang Wu hurriedly tried to spread his palm force and knock away the incoming sword.
But his body did not listen. After the long battle, his true energy had already been exhausted, and the wounds he had suffered from Shadow Shifter and Water Shadow were also severe. Moreover, since his body was accelerated, his arms were also being accelerated downward. He could not even lower his hand that was pointed toward the sky downwards. To use a palm technique, he would have had to pull his elbows as close to his body as possible, but that was impossible, so using a palm technique was impossible from the start.
Death.
It was something that had been decided.
Tang Wu had already given up on living the moment he jumped off the cliff. He had thrown himself down with only the thought of saving Tang Hua.
Perhaps if he sacrificed himself, he could save his granddaughter?
That was his thought.
But that plan had now gone awry, and an unexpected crisis had doubled down on him.
Tang Wu desperately twisted his body as much as he could.
At that moment!
Thud-!
A cold blade pierced into the back of his head.
Purbuk! Swoosh!
The sword pierced through Tang Wu's head, burst out between his mouth and nose, through the philtrum, and shot up into the sky. And at that moment, a momentary flash of clarity appeared in Tang Wu's eyes. At the same time, the acceleration applied to his body by the force carried in the sword was greatly offset.
Tang Wu squeezed out every last bit of his true origin energy and shot Tang Hua high into the sky. A palm technique that had not been possible with true energy alone became possible when he poured out his true origin energy.
Thanks to that, Tang Hua's body was able to cancel out most of the speed that had been built up and decelerate, but on the other hand, Tang Wu's body plummeted toward the ground even faster.
Gooooong-!
Tang Wu's body, accelerated to a terrifying degree, fell in a sheer drop.
He was falling so fast that before the sound could even reach the ground where Dong Bong-su was standing, his body arrived first. That meant Tang Wu's body had become faster than the speed of sound, and it also meant that the true origin energy he had poured out at the end was enormous.
Dong Bong-su hurriedly threw his body to the side to avoid Tang Wu's corpse.
Boom-!
"Grandfather!"
At the same time that Tang Wu, fused with the sword, was driven into the ground, Tang Hua, who witnessed it exactly from the air, cried out.
Along with that, the momentary flash of clarity that had appeared in Tang Wu's eyes disappeared, and holy light poured dazzlingly from Dong Bong-su's body.
Ten times.
Dong Bong-su, who had killed Tang Wu, had achieved no less than ten level-ups.
But Dong Bong-su found that strange. He had thought that killing Tang Wu would result in far more level-ups.
Ten steps of leveling. Of course, it was tremendous progress, but it did not meet his expectations.
"Too little."
He approached Tang Wu's shattered corpse. And then he could understand. Tang Wu's completely crushed body had already been on the brink of death from the start. What he had done was merely deliver the final blow. Even that, it seemed that experience point distribution had occurred when Tang Wu saved Tang Hua with his true origin energy.
"Do they call this a last hit?"
He did not play games, so he did not know the details, but he seemed to have heard something like that somewhere.
In any case, the terminology was not important.
If that was the case, this was satisfactory enough.
Killing a Tang Wu who was already about to die and getting this much 'power leveling' was not enough?
Dong Bong-su no longer paid attention to the dead Tang Wu.
Thud.
Finally, Tang Hua landed on the ground. Thanks to Tang Wu's sacrifice, she was able to come down safely. Though, because of the light pouring out of Dong Bong-su's body, she could not land properly.
Dong Bong-su simply stood there, watching her stagger as she got up.
Tang Hua stood up and shook her head violently. She probably had not yet fully recovered from the shock of the fall.
The hand she used to touch her forehead was stained red with Tang Wu's blood. Since she and Tang Wu had fallen to the exact same spot, it could not be helped.
"Ah! G, grandfather!? Hic!"
The first thing she did after coming to her senses was to cling to the fragments of Tang Wu and cry.
Then she saw the novice's sword sticking out through Tang Wu's mouth—or what she assumed to be his mouth.
Startled, she lifted her head.
Naturally, her eyes met Dong Bong-su's.
He was quietly watching her from a distance of about two meters. His 모습 was so calm that it looked as if the two of them had been together from the start.
But Tang Hua could not accept that.
"Y, you! How are you here!?"
A completely expected reaction.
Trite.
Dong Bong-su could, of course, predict her very next reaction as well.
"Why...? Why!? My grandfather!?"
Tap.
Instead of giving a stock answer, Dong Bong-su simply took one step toward her.
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