D.I.O - CH 320

“It’s Quintillion.”

Shen laughed manically as his magic power rose.

However, at that moment.

Bam!

Shen’s Spell Library, which had been activated and fully operational, disappeared with a light sound; it was like a candlelight had been extinguished.

No, to be more exact, his Spell Library had been annihilated.

“… What?”

Then, an ink-colored spear stabbed at Shen, who was still flustered.

Bam!

Shen deflected the oncoming spear stab with his fist. Lancelot murmured as he felt a strong reverberation transmitted through the tip of his spear.

“It’s not enough… what is it…”

“Lancelot?”

Cruze, who snapped her head towards Lancelot, asked aloud with a sense of confusion in her eyes. She didn’t ‘understand’ what Lancelot had just done.

And she wasn’t the only one who felt this way.

“Wow bro, what did you just do? It’s like… it’s like you just erased his attack,” Youngmin commented from the side.

“Is this something that arose because of the Hero’s Fate blessing?”

“It felt so… foreign!”

Bam!

When a barrage of bullets suddenly started raining down, Youngmin ran out and knocked them all away. Youngmin’s mind, sharpened like a blade through Gaia’s Blessing, had increased his cognitive and reasoning ability like crazy, so he was able to perfectly recognize the bullets’ paths even though the bullets were imbued and accelerated by magic power.

However, Chan’s huge sword soon appeared amidst the deflected bullets.

As a High Elf, often referred to as the ‘Chosen Elf’, the strength Chan had accumulated over his terrifying 2,700-year lifetime, which was outputted in the form of internal energy, wasn’t something that he often used.

Hence, Chan was able to output nearly 4,000 years of internal energy in an instant.

Whoosh!

In terms of martial art-style expression, 4,000 years of internal energy equaled 66 cycles. In terms of DIO’s stat point system, this meant that Chan was exhibiting over 900 points in the internal energy stat category. This allowed Chan’s internal energy to create tsunami-like shockwaves just from the release of his energy. The shockwaves were so powerful that it wouldn’t have been strange if an entire mountain was instantly leveled!

Bam!

However, as soon as Chan’s energy appeared, it disappeared.

“Huh… what happened?”

Basara’s raid leader, Chan, frowned. He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened right in front of his eyes.

“Quintillion!”

Shen’s magic power exploded out once more as Shen overtook Chan, who seemed flustered and immobile.

Search tinyurl.com/2p9emv8w for the original.

Bam!

But Shen’s burst of magic power also disappeared.

“Wait, what the hell is going on!? What is this?”

Quintillion. It was the term that referred to Shen’s talent as an Irregular. It was a term commonly used to describe mutant geniuses, which were extremely rare existences throughout the universe.

Shen was proud of his Irregular talent. Unlike other Irregulars, he was born with a special social status, as he was born into a royal family, and as a result, he grew up being revered as a great existence.

Additionally, his ability, which was completed under these optimal living conditions, was the Great Library of Magic Spells, or Spell Library, which was created after Shen had gathered tens of thousands of spells.

Quintillion, which was the compilation of all these spells, intertwined the spells in his Spell Library, which allowed Shen to activate countless spells all at once; this ultimate move used various spells to protect the caster and to destroy a designated target. Because the nature of the magic itself was so exceptional, even transcendents couldn’t easily reproduce the ultimate move.

‘What did that guy do? Some sort of Dispel?’

However, even Shen’s ultimate move was countered and nullified. With thousands upon thousands of spells intertwined together, Quintillion was a nearly impossible move to counter, yet someone had countered it… that should have been impossible unless one was a great mage.

“What the hell! Who are you?”

Shen, who didn’t pay any attention to Lancelot until now, felt like he was about to go crazy. It would have been understandable if Cruze had attained enlightenment out of the blue and blocked his attack, but how could a supporting character, who seemed to come out of nowhere, block his move so completely? However, no matter how much Shen huffed and puffed, Lancelot didn’t seem to pay any attention. No, to be more exact, Lancelot himself didn’t know exactly what was going on.

‘Something, something…’

The fact was, Lancelot had not benefited much from Gaia’s Blessing. It was no wonder. Gaia’s Blessing, Hero’s Fate, was a power that maximized one’s fate and potential.

Lancelot had already grown and developed beyond the limits of his potential.

The mere fact that Lancelot was Level 19 wasn’t normal. He had gone far beyond the preset maximum point of his given potential.

Lancelot, or Byun Dongsoo, was a true living cheat code.

He got to where he was now through a quirk in the system rather than through a miracle or achievement. By increasing his stab skill rank after executing the requisite number of skill successes, he had overcome his [wall], which would have normally taken him much longer to overcome, if at all… in other words, Lancelot had taken advantage of a gap in DIO’s system.

Bam!

“Woah… ack! What’s this?! This isn’t martial arts!”

Chan, who had trained in martial arts for thousands of years, gnashed his teeth at Lancelot’s vanishing spear attack. Chan couldn’t even recognize or visually see the movement of Lancelot’s spear anymore. Moreover, Chan’s sword, which normally glowed a divine silver light color, had disappeared as if it had been erased. The cross section of the missing sword’s blade was as smooth as a mirror.

If one couldn’t even figure out what the opponent was doing, but if one fell into the opponent’s attack [radius], would one be able to block the unknown attack?

“It’s not… martial arts?”

Lancelot, who momentarily stood still from bewildered, parroted what Chan had just mentioned.

Chan was right. Lancelot wasn’t using martial arts; this was because Lancelot wasn’t a martial artist. It was easy for anyone to misunderstand because Lancelot used a spear as his main weapon… but the fact was, Lancelot had never learned proper martial arts. He only learned how to stab.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Lancelot had raised his spear skill to the SS rank by repeating hundreds of billions of stabs… no, trillions of stabs over hundreds of years in the training room, but strictly speaking, that was just a [piercing] move, not a [spear] art. Also, Lancelot couldn’t even predict the movement of his enemy during his stab move, nor did he move from his standing position.

If a proper martial artist had seen what Lancelot had done in the training room, that martial artist would have shaken his or her head. For starters, the practice of repeating only a stabbing move every day was a complete waste of time when viewed through the lens of a martial artist.

Martial arts were, after all, techniques for fighting.

Repeating a simple stab move without thinking about defense or evasion, and not even assuming or predicting the enemy’s movements, was absolutely not a formal or even an effective way of training.

It was pure labor. A grind.

However, as a result of his labor and grinding, Lancelot was able to become a Level 19 user.

He developed despite repeating an act that many if not everyone would have viewed as a simple waste of time.

“It’s not… martial arts.”

Lancelot’s expression subtly changed. He felt something tickling his brain. He felt as though something was appearing and then disappearing within his mind. He could sense that something was there, but he couldn’t seem to obtain it.

An intense inspiration, something he had never experienced throughout his entire life, was currently stimulating him. Gaia’s Blessing, which had not been of much help to him until now, was pushing him into a realm that he would have never reached with his own powers and effort.

It was a moment of surprise and epiphany that would never happen again.

“This… No, it is…”

Whoosh!!

Lancelot exuded aura power. The aura power didn’t seem to have a particular characteristic. This was because, even though he had reached Level 19, Lancelot was still in a state where he couldn’t properly materialize his aura power. Obviously, this was an anomaly considering that it was generally accepted that aura power users could materialize their aura power in some form or direction by Level 5, but after Lancelot received confirmation from the White Divine Celestial Dragon, Thousand Scents, that the reason he couldn’t materialize his aura power was because he simply lacked talent, Lancelot gave up and just forgot about the whole thing. Moreover, all he was doing was a stab move anyway, so there was no reason or occasion to develop his aura power materialization skill.

Whoosh!

The aura power explosively increased. Lancelot, who stood absent-minded, was given a new rank, and his soul was developing to befit the rank that was bestowed upon him. And thus, his soul now possessed the quality to accept all the developments and upgrades associated with the rank.

“That…!”

Even Lancelot didn’t know that what he’d been refining for hundreds of years wasn’t a simple stab move. Though he reached the SS rank in stabbing, that attainment was just a symptom, not the cause.

What he refined all that time was…

His spirit.

“Ah man, don’t be ridiculous! You’re telling me that guy…! That homely guy reached transcendence? What the hell is going on!?”

Realizing that Lancelot was in the process of ascending to the transcendent realm, Shen’s face uglily contorted.

It was a complete flip-the-script moment.

Unlike other Irregulars, Shen, who was born with a special status as a member of a royal family and who grew up revered as a great existence, took great pride in his innate talent as an Irregular. In fact, his colossal genius was surprising even to those who had already risen to the height of transcendence, so what more needed to be said? However, Shen had lived over 300 years.

He was now over 350 years old. Even though he had now reached a point where he couldn’t go against the limit of his lifespan, even with the help of magic and technology, he still wasn’t able to overcome the wall of transcendence. If one considered that Shen brushed up against the wall of transcendence when he was only 50 years old, one could understand just how desperate Shen wanted to overcome that wall, especially since he considered himself a peerless genius.

“Everyone, get down! I’ll take on the first wave of attack…!”

“Stay back, you idiot…”

Bam! Bam!

The dwarf girl, who pulled out her huge gun barrel from her inventory subspace, and the dragon-headed man, who tried to protect her, were erased from the world. Even Chan, who always rushed into battle with fearless momentum, was caught by surprise by Lancelot’s attack and had no choice but to pull himself back.

“No, wait. No matter how close he’s getting to the transcendent realm, is this sort of thing normal? Even those who have already reached the transcendence realm wouldn’t be able to eliminate us with one blow, right?”

A transcendent being was, of course, an absolute being who crossed a certain threshold, but it was still possible to muster a resistance, to some extent, if one was a being that wasn’t far behind in terms of power level. This was the reason the Masters had been able to collectively fend off Tan, a great mage, when he first descended onto Earth.

However, to think that someone who had just reached the transcendent realm, not even a veteran, was able to erase not just one but two Basara pirates with a single blow…

“… That’s it.”

For a moment, Shen’s eyes brightened. Even though he essentially gave up his pursuits of becoming a transcendent and joined the pirate group, he was still an Irregular. He soon realized the characteristics of Lancelot’s power.

“Non-Attribute!”

The God of Magic classified the attributes of the physical world into twelve classifications, and three of these attributes were attributes that lower beings weren’t allowed to touch, so those three attributes were often referred to as the three major attributes, or the absolute attributes.

Those attributes were time, space, and emptiness.

Almost everyone who studied the spiritual world started their studies by leaving these three attributes out of the equation. Even in the realm of magic, which was said to have the highest degree of freedom among all spiritual abilities, these three attributes were only used in a limited way.

“How entertaining. A non-attribute… something I’ve only heard of in legends.”

Even Shen, who had traversed across the universe as a member of the pirate group Basara, had never seen an existence that handled a non-attribute properly. Occasionally, he’d come across talented beings that dealt with such powers, but those beings were only able to deal with the non-attributes at an insignificant level.

Whoosh!

Shen raised his magic power.

‘The power of non-attributes is creation and extinction.’

Non-attribute was an extremely rare and powerful power, but there were plenty of ways to attack it if one understood its roots.

Crack!

A rock fist, bigger than a decent-sized modern apartment, appeared from the ground and attacked Lancelot.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

As if an invisible eraser were erasing it, the front part of the rock fist disappeared without leaving behind a speck of dust. However, the power that protected Lancelot quickly ran out. His ability wasn’t something that could be maintained indefinitely.

“Don’t struggle, just die…” Shen remarked.

“Shut up! You die!” Cruze shouted.

Bam!

Shen’s left shoulder, which had been generating magic power like crazy, was blown away. As the flow of his magic power was disturbed, the rock fist lost its power and collapsed onto the ground. Chan, who was trying to protect Shen, was unable to achieve his goal due to Youngmin, who still had his Celestial Star killing intent swirling around him.

“You bitch…!”

“Hmpf! I was trying to hit the center of your body.”

Cruze, who stood to the right of Lancelot, was slightly floating in the air while holding a large-caliber pistol that was completely different from the ones she had used so far. On the opposite side of Lancelot was Youngmin, who was wrapped in his dark killing intent.

Whoosh!

And in the meantime, Lancelot’s basic mana control ability, absolute mana control ability, and synchronization with all things were completed, forming a trinity. Each of those abilities became a low-level divinity, divine position, and divine status to create a new transcendent being.

However…

Slash!

The completed divine status was destroyed. Lancelot’s body was divided in half, and soon, his upper body and lower body fell towards the ground.

[Excluded.]

[Hmm~ I don’t really like interrupting the moment when a new transcendent is born, but… I guess it’s too dangerous to just let a new power enter the fray.]

[Absolute Attribute.]

[Yes, yes… you took the appropriate action.]

Listening to the conversation between the two machines, Lancelot came to his senses. He felt the transcendent power that had been faithfully filling up within him dispersing.

“Ah, darn it…”

His opportunity to rise to the transcendent realm was the result of great luck that could only be described as fortuitous chance. Gaia’s Blessing had given him a moment of enlightenment, something he would never experience again.

And in that moment when he was enjoying his improbable luck, it was a great misfortune that a powerful enemy, who could interfere with his transcendence process, was present.