Chapter 140: My Guardian Deity (6) (1/2)

Observing the opponent, estimating how they’ll move, looking for a gap.

There was no such thing.

Yu Jitae ran in and swung [Conviction of Ancient Soldier].

Kwaangg–!

The Sword Ghost blocked it resulting in massive sparks. As their fight began, Yu Jitae was made to look into its disgusting face.

With the astonishing strength fitting an S+ mid-boss, the Sword Ghost pushed his sword away. Despite being a regressor living his fourth life, he was helplessly pushed back.

It didn’t give him any chance to restabilise and immediately ran in. The sword half mingled with darkness had an unpredictable length and range to the weapon. He thought he blocked it, but the darkness embedded within the sword flowed down before scratching Yu Jitae’s neck like the claws of a beast. His powerful physique was torn apart.

Parrying the sword, Yu Jitae tried to decapitate its head. However, the Sword Ghost’s lower body turned into a dark mist and immediately distanced itself. The [Conviction of Ancient Soldier] ended up slashing nothing but thin air.

Its movements were mysterious and due to its unpredictable nature, the Sword Ghost was already in the air above him before his eyes could follow it.

After a turn in the air, the Ghost slashed down with its sword. Even the trajectory of the sword was extraordinary.

If he were to try to block it he could, but should he?

If he were to try to dodge it he could, but should he?

Or else…

Quickly making a judgement, he stabbed the sword whilst blocking the opponent’s sword at the same time. The Sword Ghost’s sword which he couldn’t fully parry swept past his shoulder and his left shoulder muscles screamed out in pain.

Nonetheless, the attack was effective. [Conviction of Ancient Soldier] had stabbed one of the eyes of the Sword Ghost.

However, that became a problem. Since its eyes were hollow in the first place, it didn’t damage the Ghost and instead, the sword was stuck inside its skull. To the monster, its head was not a weak point.

He tried to pull the sword away, but the Sword Ghost utilised its mysterious movements again and didn’t allow him to create a distance.

That was when the surrounding forest moved in a timely manner and began slashing him like a wave of swords. Hundreds of blades scraped past his entire body as pain erupted all around. His left arm lost its sense of touch.

Because of that, his mana flow became slightly slower.

The mana soaring from his heart travelled across his upper body, through the ripped shoulders, arms and wrists, before eventually gathering at the tip of his sword.

[Sword of Giant Soldier (AA) – 7th Form]

[Obliterate]

Yu Jitae struck the ground with his sword. It created an immense explosion and fragments of sharp mana scattered everywhere, taking the blades with them. Everything within ten metres from him were all crushed including the metal trees.

The Sword Ghost hastily distanced itself.

“…”

While bleeding from his entire body, Yu Jitae bit his lips. His breaths were short.

After reaching a certain level, superhumans were able to estimate their opponent’s power level. Yu Jitae predicted that the Sword Ghost was weaker than himself. However, it had a profound understanding of swordplay and the landscape was negatively impacting him.

He thought to himself.

If he were to destroy all the trees nearby one by one, he would be able to remove the landscape. He could fight with more leisure and figure out the weakness and common habits of the opponent.

If he so wished, he could use all his leftover power to immediately kill the Sword Ghost.

However, he didn’t do so.

He had no time to waste destroying trees and observing the opponent. And the road was still too long for him to use all his power here.

Because of that, he had to kill the Sword Ghost with the least amount of power necessary, within the least amount of time.

It was easier said than done.

Yu Jitae took a deep breath in.

Time and power. Catching two birds was excessive greed and there would definitely be a negative side result following such greed. Wishing for his body to be safe on top of saving both time and power was him being overly greedy and the Regressor was aware of that.

In any case, he just had to stay alive.

Choosing from the best of the best, he used the most suitable authority he had.

[Seven-headed Dragonification (S-)]

It was an authority he gained by killing a boss of a hidden dungeon at the start of the fourth iteration. At the same time, it was the authority which had been in the hands of Oscar Brzenk, the official Rank 1 worldwide in the third iteration.

[Pure Blood]

His heart began pumping blue blood. His entire body began sensing every single thing surrounding him.

The sense of sight allowed him to look further and deeper, and everything hazy became clear.

The sense of smell made him smell the odour of mold and moss behind the dense odour of blood and corpse of the Sword Forest.

And strange feelings that couldn’t be felt until now were being sent to the brain. This was what was referred to as ‘sixth sense’. With this, he would be able to instinctively distinguish between attacks that had to be avoided and those that could be allowed.

“…”

He just had to not die. Yu Jitae moved his body.

After exactly 1 minute; after 50 exchanges,

Slash–

[Conviction of Ancient Soldier] ripped through the Sword Ghost’s heart.

“—”

It murmured something even after falling down, so he crushed it beneath his feet.

This was the end.

However, it wasn’t a clean victory. By the time he left the Sword Forest, Yu Jitae’s body had countless swords popping out like an echidna.

Once he left the forest encroached in darkness, a comparatively brighter forest welcomed him.

He forced those swords out one by one. His entire body ached as if it was on fire and his skin and muscles screamed out in pain.

It was painful.

For the first time in a very long time, he sincerely thought to himself that it was painful. His muscles and joints felt disjointed. A rest of one or two days would not be enough to fully cure his broken body.

Drip–

When he pulled out the blades that were clogging up his vessels, blood raced out like a broken dam.

He took an elixir out from his dimensional storage and rubbed it randomly onto his body and swallowed the rest. Because of the sheer mana capacity of his body, he couldn’t expect a full recovery on his mana but it could help him restore all the lost blood at least.

“…”

Only a half of the front was visible.

Yu Jitae touched his eyes. His entire body was full of blood but there was something more gooey next to his eyes. It seemed that some fluids had come out from his ripped eyeball.

He once again examined his body.

Fortunately, none of the wounds were fatal. It was thanks to his sixth sense allowing him to notice attacks that had to be dodged.

Thanks to all that, he wasn’t too far off from the Gold Dragon.

Yet again, he moved forward.

***

Some time in the distant past, Yu Jitae was a human.