[-1 000 000 Coins]
[-1 000 100 Coins]
[- 1 000 200 Coins]
Multiple times every second, coin fees emerged, each time the value went up. This situation was one, where only Noah could participate. Any normal player, playing by fair standards would have been defeated – not by the enemy, but by the system itself. But a cheater couldn't lose that easily – to a system at that.
There was no need for words, only blade slashes and impacts echoed in the rainy temple and the forest surrounding them. Normally, the wooden sword the boy held would have been slashed by the blade of this foreigner.
「Story weapon cannot be broken. Additional penalty will be implied on otherworld entity. 」
Every slash "deducted" more coins from Noah, although in his case – added. The foreigner's sword started to electrify. Sparks began flashing. Noah's current incarnation was being shredded to pieces.
「Story incarnation body cannot be broken. Additional penalty will be implied on otherworld entity. 」
Suddenly, the foreigner jumped and a water orb from the rain formed around him. He began meditating, while lightning strikes emerged from the sky. The magic contained in the orb around his body was getting more intense and about to burst out. Noah dashed forward, towards the same magical orb with concentrated energy, ready to explode in any given moment.
[BOOM.]
A colossal explosion which would have normally nullified anything in its path emerged. And this was the moment Noah waited for. From the very start, this scenario wasn't created for him to win – a wooden sword, even unbreakable, couldn't pierce through a divine blade. There were 2 options: 1) A story shield upon complete breakdown of the boy's body; 2) Noah getting his own body. In this case, the latter had happened. The sparks were indeed painful. Noah's body was getting punished severely for breaking the rules of the story.
[Creature of The Night A tier Set Effect Activated against Night and Shadow creatures ]
[Poisonous A tier Set Effect Activated against Assassin type targets ]
[Snake-blooded A tier Set Effect Activated against traitorous enemies ]
[Sole Warrior A tier Set Effect Activated against outnumbering opponents ]
[Humble Fighter A tier Set Effect Activated against arrogant fighters ]
[Sixth Sense A tier Set Effect Activated in unison with 5 other Sets ]
[Tranquil SS (A) Set Effect Activated against non-story force]
[Story Control Effect has failed against target Entity: Noah ]
All restrictions were now removed and the sparks disappeared. Now it was finally time to play a "fair fight".
Noah dashed with a blade himself forward and the impact from the clash pushed the enemy flying backwards, at which Noah jumped and created a penetrating strike from above to the now falling enemy, causing explosion from the impact with the ground. Black lightning sparks emerged from the foreigner's eyes, at which Noah just bloodily punched his face, causing explosion with each strike.
"Why don't you all come out?"
All of the shadows, hidden by magic, surrounding the temple began appearing.
The air turned dense. Around 100 shadows stepped out from the veil of magic, each cloaked in forbidden story energy. Some resembled monks. Others looked like fragmented myths from different epochs – patched-together remnants of forgotten eras. Each one had been silently watching, waiting for Noah's slip. But there was none. Noah spun his dagger once between his fingers.
"100 of you. So unfortunate, you should have brought one or two more zeroes."
Without another word, he kicked the ground. A burst of momentum – and he vanished, reappearing beside the first cloaked attacker.
A moment later, the body of the shadow soldier fell to the ground.
Immediately, the battlefield fragmented again – layers of perception twisting, enemies activating their own story passives, distortions, and illusion-based traps. A spear-user stabbed from Noah's blind spot. But his Sixth Sense flickered – 0.3 seconds before the strike. Noah bent backward unnaturally, grabbed the spear mid-air, and twisted the shaft, disarming the enemy and embedding it into their chest.
More and more skills were being used in unison. Noah dodged, striked, jumped and dashed.
Above him, a talisman exploded. Binding chains of story law began descending, aimed to immobilize his movement.
"Seal him now!" One of the corrupted monks spoke. "His energy is unstable!"
"And what? If you are afraid of unstable strength, then that's the distance you are from the enlightenment you seek for."
Noah wasn't there, the voice was coming from all directions and it echoed in the rain and in the same breath, he punched the caster into the temple wall. Debris flew.
Three enemies tried to corner him, beginning to cast a triple-incantation – a severe mistake. Noah had artifacts for many occasions.
[Grade A Artifact Interrupt Trigger Effect Activated]
The water user coughed blood and collapsed—his system imploding from skipped dialogue. Without the water verse, the tri-cast backfired. Noah blinked past the flames, rotated mid-air, and landed a heel kick on the wind user's jaw, crashing her through the temple bell. The fire monk barely managed to backstep. He held up his hands. Noah tilted his head slightly. His blade lowered for a moment. Then – he blinked in front of him. This corrupted monk, just a second ago had surrendered and now, the remains of his body were flying.
"I don't care for cliches like you."
Noah was getting tires. Actually, I'm more bored. He entered his gaming vision state and began the almost teleportation-like slashes left and right. A blink. Five enemies down. Another blink. Ten more enemies were defeated, while running away.
"This child's playground has gotten too boring. My new dream world doesn't need old-world cliches like you."
「Entity: Noah has accepted the tale Divine Blue Dragon Savior 」
From the story's start, something was strange. Noah had never experienced something like that. It was basically a double story. He was seeing the temple and the foreigner but at the same time he was in the normal world and was standing in front of the tank and the sniper.
Turned out his movements had to be coordinated in both of the stories. He was feeling strange at first – not in his own body but he was quickly getting the hang of it. Maybe by luck, but the two in front of him were making similar movements to the foreigner. Some strikes would have definitely fallen better, he thought but in general it just seemed his accuracy was off because he had just stopped such an enormous attack.
"Why don't you all come out?"
To a normal spectator it couldn't have been obvious but in both stories, countless enemies had emerged. In fact, Noah didn't know about the enemies in the real world. They were actually hidden with a skill above Rank tier: S. No matter what he had done, he couldn't for sure confirm their existence. But he knew that was the case because of a single notification he had gotten from the very start of the battle.
「The Faculty Director is looking at you. 」
[The Faculty Director] was the master of the 12th tower island, an intermediate island. That creature had its eye at Noah for a long time. Noah instantly made the connection – a story, it being linked to the normal world. It was as if this director was creating this whole situation in real time.
The enemies that appeared, ironically or not, were corrupted beasts. So, this player, this so-called master had decided to go against Noah with such a method from early on.
"Seal him now!" One of the corrupted beasts spoke. "His energy is unstable!"
"And what? If you are afraid of unstable strength, then that's the distance you are from the enlightenment you seek for."
He had now fully grasped how this double story worked and was getting tired from the boredom.
"I don't care for cliches like you."
His gaze struck at the sky as if piercing it.
[Grade SS Artifact Eye of Law Effect has been forcefully deactivated.]
"And now it's your turn."