The moment the two of them consented to it, the Shadow Wolves cleared aside and widened the space.
And so a circular arena was made.
-I am the guardian of this sanctuary, Gleip. By the mission the great one gave me, I shall defend this place.
[<Myriad Phenomena> sees through the Shadow Wolf.]
[Guardian of the Sanctum, Gleip]
Race: Shadow Wolf
Level: 80
Lineage: Beast
Rank: Guardian
Strength: 420
Agility: 730
Perception: 380
Stamina: 510
Magic Power: 100
Skills
<Wolf's Swordsmanship>, <Fear Howling>, <Guardian's Soul>.......
As befitted the chief of this dungeon, its ability values were overwhelming.
Its level was lower than the Avatar of Anubis', but it had far superior agility.
So what of the fight?
In that instant, Gleip vanished from before Geon-mu's eyes.
"Hm?"
Geon-mu reflexively threw his body to the right.
SWISH!
A sharp light passed by Geon-mu. Had he not evaded, his body would have been split with his navel at the center.
-You have an excellent sixth sense.
"A wearisome sixth sense, yes."
It thought he had dodged by sixth sense, but Geon-mu had seen that light with his own eyes and evaded.
'That movement. Something about it is familiar.'
It was not a movement peculiar to Shadow Wolves.
Moving quickly and trampling an enemy was characteristic of them, but they were not fearsome enough to move at the speed of light.
This was not a Shadow Wolf's innate ability but a special power.
'It seems to be connected to <Guardian's Soul> among the skills.'
The blades sprouting from its joints, and the craft with which it used those blades to cut down enemies.
It felt very like watching the swordsmanship of a sword master.
'Is it this creature the Nine Dragon Divine Meridians is drawn to?'
The essence of the Nine Dragon Divine Meridians was the soul of the strong.
If Gleip's soul was strong enough to make his own body react, then he could understand the pull.
-What are you waiting for, intruder? Are you hesitating?
Once more Gleip's body vanished.
At the same moment, Geon-mu swung his sword in a wide arc.
No sharp flash appeared.
Instead, when Gleip, who had been moving so cleanly, reappeared, it missed its footing and slipped.
-Hmm.......
Gleip looked down at its own right foot.
Geon-mu had aimed precisely at Gleip's head, and Gleip, forcing itself to avoid his sword, had struck its right foot against the flat of the blade.
In a situation that could easily have crippled it, it had been lucky.
"Even so, swinging wildly is not a very good choice either."
Geon-mu threw Gleip's own words back at it.
-An entertaining creature.
After taking Geon-mu's attack, Gleip's eyes changed.
Its movements, which had been sparing of its own strength and meant to trample him slowly, grew more intense.
Geon-mu waited for the moment the first flash appeared.
He met Gleip's blade with his sword.
The second form of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art,
"Return Flow."
As though a magnet had been attached, he drew Gleip's blade out and collapsed its balance.
But it did not carry into a follow-up attack.
Gleip was more seasoned in a fight than expected.
Even with its right foot sealed, it still had its left.
Gleip kicked off with its hind leg, twisted its body, and cut at Geon-mu's neck with its left arm.
Feeling the line of death, Geon-mu let his own body collapse and slipped out of the trajectory.
"Ugh."
He felt warm liquid running down his cheek.
He swept it away with his thumb and shook it off.
"Rotten weapon."
They say an artisan does not blame his tools, but that too is only possible when you have a decent tool.
The sword Geon-mu held could not fully digest the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art.
Because of a subtly unstable balance, he had failed at using Return Flow.
-You possess a considerably dangerous art. It will not work a second time.
"I wonder. I think it will work again."
Thick, lethal flashes ran riot.
They were dangerous attacks that would bore into an artery and cause bleeding at even a graze.
'There's no opening at all to counter.'
Lightning and flint.
Movement like light itself would not permit so much as a blink.
'In this state I obviously can't use the Torrent Dragon Flash Wave sword form.'
He had already used it once at the gremlin dungeon, so using it this time would mean a dead man.
And unlike with Anubis, this was a situation where the Torrent Dragon Flash Wave might not land.
It was a gamble no better than having no odds at all.
So what should he do?
He considered even accepting the risk, but with a body like this there was no way to break through Gleip's attacks.
'It isn't that there's no method at all, though.'
Geon-mu carried out the plan he had drawn up in his head.
First, he evaded and blocked with the smallest possible motions.
What he could not cover with movement, he let flow away through the Body-Protecting Aura.
'Like an irritating insect.'
Since the Body-Protecting Aura was being used to block attacks, the drain on his internal force was severe, but Geon-mu did not mind in the least.
With that single intent, a full five minutes passed.
At the moment Geon-mu's breath was rising to the top of his throat, Gleip, which had not been showing its form, revealed itself.
Unlike Anubis, which was made of earth, Gleip was a living creature, and it could not move indefinitely.
Its steel-blue blades took on the color of the evening glow, and a strange, unearthly hue blended over them.
Gleip opened its mouth.
-By this point you should be either a heap of rags or subdued before me. You are neither of those. A curious thing.
Gleip could not see Geon-mu's status window, but what level of attainment he held came into view at a glance.
His body itself was the body of a stripling, not worth discussing.
But the aura pouring off that body was another matter.
He felt the energy of a hardy soul earned through centuries of battles on mountain and water alike.
-You are no ordinary human.
"And you're no ordinary wolf, are you?"
-That current that lets you slough off a blow to the body...... is that magic? No, unlike magic it is light. What in the world is this art you use?
"There's no reason for me to answer that question."
Geon-mu spun the short sword around and around, then shifted it to a one-handed grip.
-Rightly said. We discuss life and death with the body alone.
In that instant, Gleip spread both legs and lifted its head to the sky.
AWOOOOO!!
A roar rang out thunderously and shook the forest.
[You are within the range of <Fear Howling>.]
<Fear Howling>.
A skill that amplifies fear of wolves and strips away the will to fight.
It reduces the Strength and Agility stats by 100, and increases the damage taken from wolves.
Geon-mu's stats had already fallen close to zero.
"Haah....... Haah......!"
Geon-mu clutched at his own throat in distress.
-Blame your own foolishness for failing to prepare sufficiently, mortal.
Gleip's blade pronounced a steel-blue death sentence.
In that brief instant when it could deliver death to Geon-mu.
Gleip realized everything had gone wrong.
'Those eyes......!'
The eyes of Cha Geon-mu, who should have fallen, were burning with fighting spirit, and they were staring straight at the blade.
The second form of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art.
This time not the sword, but the hand.
'There is no weapon as familiar as the hand.'
It carried a completeness on an entirely different plane from deflecting with a sword.
The edge tore his skin as it touched his hand, but Geon-mu did not mind.
"Return Flow."
The blade Geon-mu's hand touched moved along the current Geon-mu drew.
Unable even to resist, Gleip could do nothing but take it.
With his hand as the center, its body twisted entirely and was driven into the ground.
THUUUD—!
-Guh!
Its whole body went numb with the shock of being rammed by a boulder the size of a house.
Showing its grit as a guardian, it tried to raise its body.
But it was already too late.
A translucent sphere had formed in Cha Geon-mu's right hand.
He pressed the small storm gathered at the center of his palm into Gleip's chest.
The first form of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art.
"Air-Breaking Palm."
THOOM—!
Gleip's silver fur rippled.
Ribs broke, and the sharp edges bored into its heart and organs.
Gleip staggered to its feet.
Geon-mu could tell.
That it was already dying.
Gleip knew it too.
That was why it only rose; it showed no further hostility.
Geon-mu made no move to respond either.
-Keugh! Keugh!
Gleip opened its mouth and let out a voice draining of strength.
Its lungs had been pierced through, so even making a sound was hard, but it forced the sentence to its end.
-You...... should surely have been swallowed...... by my roar.......
"So you were relying on that howling quite a lot, then?"
Geon-mu, who had appeared so helpless, wore a knowing smile.
Only then could Gleip understand.
-Did it never work on you from the start?
The arrogant and foolish one was not Geon-mu but Gleip itself.
-How foolish of me. Against a rival of this measure...... I should surely have known it would not work.......
Gleip dropped its head.
The trembling of its body vanished entirely, and its face grew peaceful.
"Go well, guardian."
Geon-mu paid his respects to Gleip.
An enemy, but a being skilled enough to deserve respect.
Geon-mu glanced with his eyes at the messages he had been ignoring all this time.
[<Heaven-Breaking Divine Art> nullifies <Fear Howling>.]
Fear Howling was a roar that manufactured fear.
Which meant that if you did not fear, there was nothing to be caught by in the first place.
'I was only waiting for him to use it.'
That had been the plan Geon-mu had in mind.
He had been sure that if he made himself irritating enough, it would certainly be used.
At a glance it looked like a cowardly method, but Geon-mu had no compunction about using such methods.
'Because a contest is not always settled according to strength.'
Having fought through more than a hundred years, Geon-mu knew that better than anyone.
Which was why he did not let his guard down even now.
The Shadow Wolves seated in a circle around him.
Dozens of wolves that had watched Gleip's death and risen to their feet were glaring at Geon-mu.
Surrounded by dozens of red glowing eyes, Geon-mu did not flinch in the slightest.
"Are you lot going to fight too?"
Hostility could be felt from the Shadow Wolves.
But they did not approach.
The contest was already decided, and they were showing respect to the winner.
The Shadow Wolves went into the shadows and disappeared.
At last what remained were Geon-mu and the corpse of the loser, Gleip.
A moment later, messages began to appear in a flood.
[<Wolf Bound by the Thinnest Cord> is filled with admiration.]
[<God of Creation and Death> falls into wonder at the sight of you.]
[<Goblin King> acknowledges you.]
"Is there no way to block certain messages? There's one bastard I can't stand the sight of."
He tried the usual provocation to needle the Goblin King, but a message unlike the usual ones came flying in.
[<Goblin King> has gifted you 100 Goblin Coins.]
A complaining message should have come flying at him, and a gift came instead.
A hundred of them exchanged at the Exchange came to 10,000 coins.
It was by no means a small sum.
"Thanks for the hundred coins. You're a better bastard than I thought."
[<Goblin King> is flustered.]
Geon-mu was a man who knew how to express gratitude.
If goodwill came without conditions and he did not so much as acknowledge it, he would look to have neither blood nor tears, so he considered it the minimum of humanity.
[<Wolf Bound by the Thinnest Cord> has gifted you 20,000 coins.]
[<Wolf Bound by the Thinnest Cord> proposes a contract.]
[<God of Destruction and Creation> has gifted you 50,000 coins.]
[<God of Destruction and Creation> proposes a contract.]
Seizing the moment, the Patron Stars proposed contracts to Geon-mu along with their gifts.
<Goblin King> belatedly joined the ranks as well and proposed a contract to Geon-mu once more.
Of course, Geon-mu had not the slightest intention of contracting.
He set every contract proposal aside and accepted every one of the gifts they sent.
A hundred and forty thousand coins in total!
To put it crudely, it was a sweet situation indeed.
[<Nine Dragon Divine Meridians> stirs.]
While Geon-mu was absorbed in receiving gifts, a message rose.
It seemed to be urging his steps along.
"All right, all right. I'm going."
Geon-mu moved into the ruin.
It was time to confirm what the guardian Gleip had been so determined to protect.
Geon-mu lit a torch and went inside.
And there, as in so many ruins, records were carved.
[Though it was said his birth was lowly, he was called by a god.]
[He knew how to command nature, and gained a deep enlightenment concerning power that surpasses humanity......]
Following the pictures, he quickly realized it was the tale of a hero.
[......and in the end the man became emperor of the empire under the name Dragon-Slaying Emperor, and delivered peace out of eternal oppression.]
"That's my story."
The Dragon-Slaying Emperor, Cha Geon-mu.
It was his own story.
There were a few places exaggerated into myth, but the content dealt broadly with Geon-mu's own story.
"Who on earth wrote it out this cringingly?"
Geon-mu forced down the urge to curl up and checked the recorder.
[Recorded by the Imperial Princess, Coppelia.]
"Of course it was."
The emperor's eldest daughter, and his only one.
She had been treasured by the emperor as his sole child, yet she had persisted with talent and drive until she persuaded him, and set out on the journey with Cha Geon-mu.
Cha Geon-mu recalled her.
Her love for the empire was second to none, not even the emperor's.
She was a woman who would do anything for the empire, enough to cast aside the standing of an imperial princess and set out on an adventure.
Geon-mu had always thought highly of that spirit, and she in turn had stayed with him to the end as a dependable ally.
'Even so, did you have to write it this cringingly.......'
He did not like it, but she was long dead, and everyone who was going to see it certainly had.
Coppelia too would have died.
Geon-mu swallowed the bitterness and faced reality.
'If a mural with my story on it is inside.......'
This place was the tomb of the Dragon-Slaying Emperor, Cha Geon-mu.
Or else it was without doubt a ruin where something connected to Geon-mu was kept.
When he went deep down the long corridor, a dome-shaped space greeted Geon-mu.
At its center stood a single pillar-shaped altar.
"This is......."
What lay upon it was something a little different from what Geon-mu had been imagining.