Movies and television had given people a common impression.
The bigger the muscles, the greater the strength.
But in exchange, speed and agility suffered.
To some extent, that was true.
Muscles so overdeveloped that they became bulky could hinder flexibility.
A body far heavier than that of an ordinary person naturally lost some lightness of movement.
But there was one important condition.
The two sides had to exist at roughly the same level.
In modern society, that distinction might not matter much.
There was no supernatural power there.
No matter how hard someone trained, they were still human.
Still mortal.
But this was a genuine fantasy world.
Mortal legends existed.
Sage incarnations walked the world.
Gods and demons were real.
Under those conditions, the difference in level mattered enormously.
Compared to Xia Nan, an eighteen-year-old farm boy, the bugbear surpassed him in almost every category except intelligence and farming.
Even knowledge.
The creature could speak both Goblin and Common.
So although adrenaline had stripped away Xia Nan’s fear and allowed him to launch a counterattack immediately after dodging, Henk still reacted with ease.
It did not even bother pulling the mace out of the ground.
Faced with Xia Nan’s incoming sword, the bugbear simply swung one thick, fur-covered arm.
Bang!
Xia Nan flew backward.
For one instant, it felt as though he had been hit head-on by a train.
A massive force exploded through his chest.
His thoughts cut out.
Dizziness and pain crashed over him together, nearly tearing his consciousness apart.
“Fuck!”
Xia Nan struggled upright.
The thick taste of blood filled his mouth.
And when he looked up, Henk was already standing over him.
“Bug, bad!”
Blood continued to run from the shallow wound on the bugbear’s neck.
Its yellowish-brown eyes burned with anger and humiliation, as though a rabbit already lying on the chopping block had suddenly bitten it.
“Henk will eat you alive!”
Bugbear tribes had never developed anything that could really be called sophisticated torture.
Their understanding of cruelty remained primitive.
To them, forcing prey to watch itself being eaten alive was about as vicious as punishment could get.
The priest of Henk’s old tribe had even discovered a plant that could keep badly injured prey conscious through the process.
Fortunately, Henk did not have any of that plant with it.
Nor did it possess such advanced “cooking” techniques.
So Xia Nan could probably at least expect a relatively quick death.
At this point, staring up at the bugbear approaching him, Xia Nan finally understood the gap between them with painful clarity.
Even so, begging never crossed his mind.
For one thing, he did not believe a creature like Henk possessed enough mercy to spare him.
For another…
Xia Nan had noticed something behind it.
Maji.
The hunter’s lower leg had been smashed to pieces, but he was slowly dragging himself upright against the wall.
His right hand gripped his longbow.
His left was reaching for his quiver.
Their eyes met.
Only for an instant.
Then both looked away.
They had known each other for barely any time.
They had no real rapport.
No practiced teamwork.
Yet Xia Nan immediately understood the message in Maji’s gaze.
[Buy time. Keep its attention.]
His thoughts raced.
Xia Nan opened his mouth.
“Hey. You won’t taste good if you do that.”
“Hm?”
Henk paused.
The little bug was talking.
The mace remained raised above its head.
“No! Human tastes good!”
“If you’re going to eat me raw, I recommend marinating me first.”
The fact that Henk had actually responded was enough.
Xia Nan no longer cared what nonsense came out of his mouth.
“First, put me in a basin and wash me clean. Then add salt to kill germs and season the meat. Mix it for five minutes, add ginger, garlic, chili peppers, and soy sauce, seal it up, and leave it for thirty minutes.”
Henk’s expression began to sour.
The random cooking instructions were clearly testing its patience.
Xia Nan immediately changed tactics.
“The flavor…”
He leaned hard into the important part.
“It’ll be fresh and sweet. You keep my original flavor, but you also get the sourness and heat from the seasoning. Very appetizing.”
“Sweet? Spicy… what do they taste like?”
Henk still had the mace raised.
But now it was asking questions.
Unfortunately, a bugbear was not an ogre.
It might love meat, but its brain was not so simple that it could only focus on one thought at a time.
The instant the words left its mouth, Henk realized what Xia Nan was doing.
“Little bug trick Henk. Die!”
It lunged forward two steps.
The muscles along its right arm swelled.
The mace began to move.
And at that exact moment,
Maji was ready.
He drew.
Nocked.
Aimed.
Whoosh!
The familiar sound of metal slicing through air rang out again.
This time, the distance between Maji and the bugbear was much shorter.
Even with reaction speed far beyond that of an ordinary person, dodging would be difficult.
More importantly,
The energy barrier that could have become every archer’s nightmare did not appear.
Then…
“Shhk!”
Blood sprayed.
Maji’s lower leg had been destroyed, forcing him to shoot while seated against the cave wall.
[Precision Strike] still guided the arrow with terrifying accuracy, but without a proper stance, the shot lacked much of its usual force.
Even so, the metal arrow punched through the bugbear’s right eye the instant it turned toward the sound.
Only a small part of the shaft sank into the socket.
Not enough.
But the poison was already working.
The paralyzing venom spread inward from the wound.
A grievous injury.
Not a fatal one.
But it was a chance.
Perhaps the last one they would get.
Xia Nan did not hesitate.
As Henk roared from the agony of its ruined eye, Xia Nan gripped his one-handed sword with both hands.
His arms already felt as though the muscles were being torn apart from the inside.
He ignored it.
And forced out his fourth [Spinning Slash] of the day.
Cold light flashed.
The bugbear’s brownish fur offered no resistance.
The thick hide beneath it, tough as cowhide, formed the first real barrier.
The blade slowed slightly.
Then came the heavy layer of fat.
Like mud in a swamp, it did not stop the sword outright, but it steadily drained away the force behind the swing.
Beneath that were muscles as hard as stone.
They swallowed nearly all the remaining power carried by the blade.
Even with the amplification of [Spinning Slash], Xia Nan only barely managed to break through.
Then, after forcing its way through fur, hide, fat, and muscle, the sword reached the hardest defense inside any living body.
Bone.
“Crack.”
The battle-worn one-handed sword had spent long enough passing from one rookie adventurer to another.
At last, it found an ending worthy of itself.
In a vicious encounter that would have been the greatest battle of its entire history,
It broke.
The sudden loss of resistance left Xia Nan’s hands empty.
All the power he had built up had nowhere to go.
He saw cracks race across the blade.
Saw them spread.
Then the momentum of [Spinning Slash] carried his whole body away at an angle.
“Rrrraaaagh!!!”
Henk screamed.
The pain was unlike anything the bugbear had ever experienced.
Whatever reason it still possessed shattered completely.
With one violent motion, it ripped the arrow from its eye socket.
The ruined eyeball came out with it.
Blood poured down its body like a waterfall, turning its fur crimson and making the already savage creature look even more monstrous.
Now, facing that frenzied beast, the ragtag party had only two people left.
One was a weakened hunter with a shattered leg.
The other was a rookie adventurer whose stamina had run dry and whose weapon had just broken.
The ending seemed obvious.
Maji’s face filled with despair.
Using [Precision Strike] a second time had driven his body completely past its limit.
Now he was paralyzed.
Every muscle seemed to twitch and spasm on its own.
He could not summon even a trace of strength.
His gaze went empty.
No one knew what was passing through his mind.
Perhaps he regretted letting greed lead him into this cave.
Perhaps he hated himself for never learning from past mistakes and wished he had been just a little more careful.
Or perhaps he was remembering the girl who had once smiled at him beneath the white oak tree in his hometown.
Unexpectedly,
Xia Nan looked completely different.
His body was also on the verge of collapse.
Yet the expression on his face was not despair.
It was complicated.
Very complicated.
It was like playing mahjong in his previous life with a garbage hand, deciding to play defensively and drag things out until an exhaustive draw, only to scrape together the smallest possible win at the very end.
Or like dumping thousands into a game without getting a single top-rarity character, giving up and preparing to quit, then pulling an SSR with the final free draw handed out by the developers.
Relief.
Joy.
Resentment.
All tangled together into one overwhelming thought.
[Why the fuck didn’t you come sooner?]
Because at the exact moment Xia Nan had unleashed that last [Spinning Slash],
A flood of translucent text swept across his vision.
“Proficiency +1”
“[Spinning Slash] Lv. 4 (100/100) -> [Spinning Slash] Lv. 5 (Max)”
“Strength +1, Agility +1”
“Feat [Slashing Expert] unlocked”
…
[Slashing Expert]
Category: Feat
Effect: Slashing damage +5%
Description:
Day after day of practice has gradually taught you the secrets hidden within the blade.
Note 1:
“Back then, I took this sword and hacked my way from Mount Celestia all the way to the Nine Hells. Five years and six months, back and forth, and I never blinked once.”
• Twilight of the Gods, thirty-fifth contract bearer of the “Sword of Final Annihilation,” the Abandoned One, Julius
Note 2:
“Your sweat will never let you down!”
• the Stone Saint, legendary monk of the Tempered Resolve Sect, Yongwu
…
Xia Nan did not have the luxury of examining any of it carefully.
One glance was enough.
That last battle had given him the final point of proficiency he needed.
[Spinning Slash] had risen from Lv. 4 to Lv. 5.
Maximum level.
And with it came a series of improvements.
Then something changed inside him.
A strange power burst from deep within his body like water surging from a spring.
It spread through him in an instant.
His exhausted muscles loosened, soothed as though they had been lowered into a hot bath.
His previously somewhat soft physique tightened noticeably.
Strength surged through his limbs.
His explosive power rose.
Even the ground beneath his feet seemed to change.
It felt softer.
Lighter.
As though springs had suddenly appeared inside his shoes.
Agile.
Quick.
Full of strength.
It was almost as if Xia Nan had changed bodies again.
The exhaustion and pain that had been dragging him down vanished in a breath.
He lifted his head.
Dark eyes locked onto the savage figure charging straight at him.
Xia Nan tossed aside the broken hilt of his sword.
Something silver flashed at the edge of his vision.
He glanced sideways.
Gagu’s corpse lay sprawled across the ground.
Beside the half-orc’s feet, his two-handed axe stood buried in the earth.
The weapon was nearly half as tall as a person.
Xia Nan made his decision.
Henk had already gone completely berserk from its injuries.
The bugbear’s mind was drowning in raw destructive instinct.
If its dead goblin underlings had somehow stood back up in front of it, Henk would have torn them apart without a second thought.
In that state, it had no hope of noticing what had just changed in the weak human youth before it.
Henk only followed instinct.
Repeated the hunting sequence it had performed countless times over more than a decade.
Charge.
Aim at the prey.
Raise the mace.
Smash.
Whoosh!
A streak of silver-white light flashed through the dark cave.
Cleaner than before.
Sharper.
Gone almost as soon as it appeared.
Behind that brief flash lay greater explosive power and far more refined technique.
At Lv. 5, its maximum level, [Spinning Slash] had given Xia Nan complete mastery of the move.
How to draw out the greatest force while wasting the least stamina.
Which angle produced the most damage.
When the perfect moment to strike would come.
Every detail had settled into his body.
The technique no longer felt like something he knew.
It felt like something he was.
And then there was [Slashing Expert].
A 5% damage increase did not sound like much.
But it was a real, unconditional increase applied to every slashing attack he made.
More important than either of those, however, were the two precious attribute points.
Strength +1.
Agility +1.
Muscular power.
Physical potential.
Reaction speed.
Coordination.
The change from “5” to “6” was not simply a twenty-percent numerical increase.
It was something far more comprehensive.
A full-body improvement touching every related aspect of his physical ability.
Put together, those changes had pushed Xia Nan’s combat power up several steps in the span of only a few seconds.
And [Spinning Slash], unleashed on top of that new foundation, was no longer the same attack.
The two-handed axe should have felt brutally heavy.
Instead, after the strengthening of his body, it sat comfortably in Xia Nan’s hands.
Power rose from his legs.
Drove through his body.
Gathered.
Transferred.
The axe blade swept diagonally upward.
Every ounce of force converged into a single point.
Then erupted.
“Rrrraaaagh!”
Hot, foul breath thick with the smell of blood washed over Xia Nan’s face.
The shadow of the raised spiked mace swallowed him.
He could clearly see the blood vessels webbing through the bugbear’s remaining murky yellowish-brown eye.
He could feel the air trembling from its roar.
But that was all.
Because in the next instant,
Xia Nan’s hands felt the familiar resistance of steel biting into flesh.
A sensation that had grown steadily more familiar through repeated battles.
Fur.
Flesh.
Bone.
The defenses that had stopped his broken sword only moments earlier gave way.
A brief drag.
Then smooth release.
The axe carried Xia Nan through a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.
“Shhk!”
The bugbear’s enormous head spun away from its shoulders.
Its face was still frozen in the middle of a furious roar.
The iron mace crashed to the ground.
Hot crimson blood erupted from the severed neck like a fountain.
Then Henk’s hulking body toppled after it.