D.I.O

Chapter 244

“This is ridiculous. I’ve heard that your talents reach the levels of irrationality… but even so, my predecessors have feared me as being a heavenly existence untouchable by those below the heavens…. For me to be so easily dealt with….”

Sungmuk tried to exert his strength.

Wriggle.

However, all he could do was wriggle parts of his body; he couldn’t do anything else.

With both arms and legs turned into pieces of shredded meat, regardless of his firm will, he was rendered useless. If he possessed even the slightest amount of genuine qi, Sungmuk would have at least taken some emergency measures, but he had nothing.

“Heavenly body… and a veteran martial artist… it’s good I came here.”

Sungmuk was a completely different existence from common monsters, which constantly respawned to fight users. Monsters like Sungmuk, capable of using high-level abilities and carrying out proper conversations, were essentially akin to beings from an entirely separate dimension from normal monsters.

Though DIO’s system could recreate normal monsters indefinitely, monsters with high [levels] couldn’t be mass-produced.

In other words, these high-level monsters were not originally [created] by DIO’s system.

‘Quiet Heaven once mentioned that these guys are subject to [slave contracts].’

The high-level monsters were contractors that fulfilled distinct duties from pets, which formed close connections with users and helped them grow.

Pets such as Quiet Heaven and Ellie signed contracts under their status as Noblesse, so essentially, they agreed to their contracts with relatively equal footing.

Of course, even if they belonged to the Noblesse and were mostly considered equals, this was only superficial equality, as mixed-race species couldn’t be called true Noblesse. Nevertheless, these lesser Noblesse had a place in DIO’s system, as they sought their own rewards and goals. Quiet Heaven had once explained…

[However, the situation is different for monsters, helpers, and NPCs. They’re… closer to being deceased. The administrators of DIO lured in the souls who had already died but still possessed lingering desires or unfulfilled feelings, unable to enter the Nether World for whatever reason. The administrators enticed and promised to revive these souls if they accomplished their duty and contract. Most of the dead souls had no other options, so they signed these slave-like contracts and were treated harshly. It was a bit better for existences with decent ability levels, but if the contractee lacked such a skill or had a glaring weakness, their memories were often sealed.]

The monsters within DIO came from countless dimensions and planets. The Noblesse could roam the entire universe with their transcendent power, and they collected an extensive amount of eligible souls and made them into components that comprised the current DIO system.

“What… are you talking about?”josei

“As I said, I’m not here to fight you.”

Merlin didn’t come to hunt Sungmuk but sought him for another purpose.

Sungmuk had the most [uniqueness] among the non-transcendent monsters. Thus, Merlin judged that Sungmuk was a high-level monster that best suited his objective.

Despite his ravaged body, Sungmuk smiled and laughed.

“And as I said earlier, I was made to fight beings like you….”

“Wow. Even in your current condition, you’re still stubborn and unyielding- woah!”

Whoosh!

Merlin sighed as he approached Sungmuk before abruptly crying out as he quickly took a few steps back. Merlin’s throat had been half-slit and started spewing out golden smoke.

Luckily, Merlin had a robust body, so he hurriedly applied healing magic to himself and escaped worse injury. Any regular user would have succumbed to the attack and died.

“Sheesh. You avoided it.”

Merlin’s wound healed in no time, and he seemed surprised when he saw Sungmuk’s sad appearance as the latter lay immobile.

“Heart Sword? No, it can’t be.”

Sungmuk couldn’t complete the Heart Sword, as he hadn’t even transcended yet.

Developing the Heart Sword could be done at lower levels, but someone who could display its full effects and exert the Heart Sword’s physical force couldn’t be considered an existence from a lower species.

Even if an individual lacked a physical foundation, the moment they retrieved the Heart Sword from within themself, that person could remove the very framework of their physical foundation.

Hence, logically, since the DIO system and its restrictions were connected to Sungmuk, it should have been impossible for him to use Heart Sword. After all, this ability was the physical materialization of sword qi and the hallmark of a Grand Master.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine. Sungmuk launched a type of attack that could leap through space, but his use of the technique seems to be limited to close combat. Compared to the actual Heart Sword, his attack seems to have sacrificed quite a bit of its destructive power and ability to hinder healing.”

If Sungmuk had launched a true Heart Sword attack, even Merlin would have lost his life from one blow.

The target could not avoid the Heart Sword. There were no walls or barriers that protected one’s heart, and since a Heart Sword attack needed no time to reach the heart, the only way to avoid it was to foresee the future.

In other words, people could not fight this attack unless they prevented it from being used in the first place.

“Wow, you’re great. You couldn’t even survive one of my mid-level blows a while back. I would never have thought a kid like you could defeat me so convincingly now.”

“There’s nothing to be so depressed about; the uniqueness of the martial arts I learned has allowed me to develop beyond anyone’s expectation. Moreover, I knew that if I didn’t subdue you with one blow, the battle between us would have gone on for a long period.”

The Golden Pill Immortal Technique was a martial arts style that poured everything into one strike.

Moreover, the main output process of the Golden Pill Immortal Technique, the No Living World, was efficient beyond imagination. It could amplify internal energy and produce an exponentially higher amount of internal energy than what was originally inputted.

Considering that, in general martial arts, the ratio between the internal energy consumed and the internal energy able to be exerted was only one-to-one at best, the Golden Pill Immortal Technique’s uneven input-to-output ratio was absurd.

Unsurprisingly, with such enormous advantages, there were also considerable drawbacks. Actually, the more power used in one blow, the more serious the disadvantages became.

Unlike Mercury, which didn’t have a cooldown period and could be used at any time, the second system, Venus, required a cooldown time of half a second, and in the case of Earth, the user needed to wait 30 seconds between uses. Lastly, Mars needed a 15-minute cooldown time.

This was because No Living World entered a kind of discharge state in order to amplify internal energy once more.

Even if No Living World re-entered a stable state after activation and cooldown, the subsequent cooldown times would gradually get longer if the practitioner used No Living World repeatedly within a short time.

Of course, the disadvantage wouldn’t have been so significant if it were only the longer cooldown times.

If it was just a matter of waiting a little bit, couldn’t a practitioner of No Living World still use Mercury and Venus?

Practitioners who possessed two planets would already have an ample internal energy capacity. In theory, they could utilize both planets without much delay due to cooldowns.

‘However, the user’s blood vessels are the main problem. Plus, the physical body itself presents a problem. One miscalculation and the practitioner’s body would most likely explode from the immense force exerted.’

Basically, Merlin’s hand strike was a surprise attack or a skill meant for one-hit kills; it was not developed to be used multiple times during a single battle. Once the amplified energy passed through his blood vessels, his physical body was burdened and handicapped, a physical state he couldn’t ignore.

This was why Merlin did not use his total capacity of 100 years of internal energy. Instead, he refrained and only inputted 50 years of internal energy into No Living World.

If he had gone all out and inputted his full capacity, his 100 years would have amplified to 1,600 years after passing through Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars.

A thousand and six hundred years meant 26 cycles of internal energy.

Yes, Merlin could wield a 26-cycle internal energy strike. However, that output would destroy his body just by [passing through] his blood vessels.

“Ugh. It doesn’t seem like you used some sort of magic martial arts. Perhaps you’ve learned and developed an extreme form. However, such extreme martial arts are not a good way to reach the pinnacle….”

“It’s fine. I’m not just an internal energy user… I’m also a mage.”

If Merlin had been a pure martial artist, the Golden Pill Immortal Technique’s unique characteristic would have been a huge weakness, but he wasn’t so simple.

No, on the contrary, he succeeded in perfecting his combat skills with superior magic abilities.

“Well, since I managed to subdue you, I should get to work before you die.”

“Work? What work? I was curious from the beginning, but what kind of bullshit are you spewing-”

Bam!

Merlin drove his dagger into Sungmuk’s heart while the orc was still speaking. The dagger, made from a jewel, emanated soft light.

“Operate Editor Blade.”

When Merlin triggered his Editor Blade, the power contained in the jeweled sword activated. Soon, Merlin’s thoughts were shot into the [inside] of Sungmuk through his Anyform blade dagger.

Then, Merlin could interpret the overarching system that governed Sungmuk and acquire further information.

In Merlin’s opinion, the Editor Blade was a power that should never exist in DIO.

If the Empress of Magic r the Noblesse knew of the Editor Blade’s existence, they would probably try to kill Merlin, the dagger’s creator, or place a penalty equivalent to the blade’s power.

Few, if any, developers liked having editors who modified their games.

‘Still, if I have a chance to use it to my advantage, then obviously, I should use it.’

With a smile, Merlin [corrected] Sungmuk’s existence.

“Data patch.”