Overgeared

The Full Moon Fortress, which floated above the sea, looked like a particularly large moon. It had been guarded by three Absolutes, but now Grid slashed it in half. He turned to look at the horizon, in the direction of his clone.

‘Should I leave now?’

He had created the clone using Judar’s body manufacturing recipe and Greed. The clone could never be destroyed, but it could somewhat break. If it took a lot of damage, its joints would twist, and its body would crush and fold bizarrely. The clone wasn’t exactly alive, so it could not recover by itself. Since it was made out of metal, it needed to be repaired.

Of course, Grid’s clone also had blacksmithing skills. His stats and level were the same as Grid’s. However, it had different titles. The clone had failed to inherit any of Grid’s titles. As a result, he had accumulated new titles by achieving different things than Grid.

He became a powerful magician. However, his skills as a blacksmith and swordsman fell behind. The clone could repair himself, but Grid wasn’t sure if the clone could do it properly, since the material was tricky to work with.

‘Why fight so recklessly?’ Grid complained.

Now that he learnt that the cultivators wanted his clone, he was very worried about it. However, he wasn’t really that upset about the clone taking so much damage. Grid believed that the clone had made the right choice by dragging the immortal and cultivator into the grave with him. Had he not done that, the clone would have lost. Dealing with an Absolute who was at the level of an old dragon and his clone at the same time wasn’t an easy feat. Good thing the clone had Poison Smog in his arsenal

‘...I should’ve learned Poison Smog as well.’

Braham spent most of his time in his residence studying magic. He was always researching something. He even had a laboratory in his mental world for this exact purpose!

Grid, who was close to Braham, had witnessed firsthand how massive the explosions caused by Poison Smog could be. He had, however, dismissed the spell, and made a lot of excuses for disregarding it. To create a powerful explosion using Poison Smog, the flames needed to be extremely powerful and the pressure had to be quite high. It was impossible to use Poison Smog consistently, so that was why he had dismissed it.

But... maybe he shouldn’t have. Grid should’ve been just as interested in Poison Smog as his clone. No, not just his spell, but magic altogether. Magic was something that became more valuable the more one studied it.

Watching Braham’s research process was a learning experience itself. There had been multiple opportunities for Grid to get better at magic. However, he found learning magic cumbersome, complicated, and impractical, so he had missed out.

Meanwhile, the clone tried to learn everything that Braham had to offer. This was probably why Braham showed an eagerness to teach the clone, something that he didn’t show to Grid.

‘Well, it’s too late for me to have any regrets now. If I was like my clone, I would’ve had a business card saying that I graduated from Seoul National University.’

After all, the clone was still Grid. The clone had a different mindset toward studying because of Grid. Grid wanted to leave anything he considered troublesome to his clone, so the clone abided by this and picked up magic.

However, the clone and Grid were two sides of the same coin. They couldn’t be separated. In other words, Grid was delusional for claiming that he would’ve graduated from Seoul National University had he been like his clone. He just wasn’t smart enough.

‘...This tells me that one’s life changes along with their mindset.’

Grid realized his mistake. He was just making excuses for not putting in more effort into studying.

Meanwhile, Noe was busy feasting on the cultivators he had hunted. “Yum, yum!”

A nascent soul was the soul of a cultivator. It was different from ordinary people’s souls because it possessed an Innate Treasure and a spiritual root. Noe feasted on the cultivators. He used to only feed on human souls, but recently he’d learned to absorb the spiritual energy of cultivators. The higher the level of one’s cultivation, the greater the nutrients for Noe.

After a series of feasts, Noe’s cultivation level exceeded Grid’s. Before he knew it, Noe had reached the foundation building realm. He had three times more spiritual energy than that of Grid, who was still in the qi refining realm.

Noe was just done with chewing and swallowing the nascent soul of a great ascension cultivator who had fought back by throwing his Innate Treasure even after losing his body.

“Nyang? Grid...”

Noe felt something he had never felt before. Maybe it was because Noe had reached a new realm.

“My stomach hurts...”

“Huh?”

Noe placed his paws, which looked like white mittens, neatly on his stomach. He suddenly collapsed because he found it hard to breathe. As he lay on his back, his belly inflated even more. It kept inflating and deflating, just like a balloon.

“That is why you should eat slowly... Huh?”

Grid was worried. Did Noe have an upset stomach? He started caressing Noe’s belly but suddenly stopped. He sensed a familiar yet also unfamiliar aura. It wasn’t just one. Dozens, if not hundreds, of different types of energies were stirring in Noe’s stomach.

‘What’s going on?’

Grid finally realized what those energies were.

“Ack!”

Noe let out a short gasp. He spat out one of the energies that had been lingering in his stomach. It was a five-piece bell tied together. The bell glowed gold, silver, blue, white, and black. It was the weapon of the great ascension cultivator, whom Grid had killed over thirty minutes before. Noe had eaten his nascent soul.

To be exact, this was the cultivator’s Innate Treasure. It seemed that the cultivator had been training and refining it in his spiritual root all his life. This was the main weapon that the cultivators used, the one they spat out during fights.

“Why is this coming out of you?”

“Ack! Ugh!”

Noe gasped again and again. He was in so much pain, he was going to cry. He kept spitting out the Innate Treasures of the cultivators, ranging from tiny needles to quite large treasures... There were well over two hundred of them. They were all Innate Treasures from the nascent souls that Noe had swallowed.

Were there really so many of them inside Noe’s stomach...? Of course, Noe could become quite big when he transformed into his main form, but right now, he was just a small cat. This was a surprising occurrence.

Grid, who had been stroking Noe’s belly in a daze, came to his senses and asked, “Can you control them?”

“If I could, would I have spat them out...?” Noe asked with a puzzled look on his face.

The treasures floating in the sky gathered and pointed in the same direction. It just so happened that Grid sensed something approaching.

“Light?”

The sky turned golden, bathing the horizon in sacred light. Was this Rebecca’s doing? Ever since the Refractive Dragon got resurrected, Rebecca had been stuck dealing with it. Since they were moving across the continent in real time, it wasn’t strange to suddenly encounter them at any time and any place.

Grid kept his eyes on the light.

Flash!

The light suddenly stopped moving. Grid finally realized who it was. It wasn’t Rebecca.

It was Hanul, another God of the beginning.

Grid became alert. He told Hanul, “I heard that you recently succeeded in embodying light. I guess the rumors were true.”

Hanul had long been expelled from the West Continent. He couldn’t show his true power unless he was in the East Continent.

Still, he was a God of the beginning. People said that he even absorbed Rebecca’s powers. Grid could never allow himself to let his guard down against him.

Therefore, he immediately took a battle stance. Hanul, who had been staring at him, turned to look somewhere else. The hundreds of Innate Treasures that Noe had just vomited were now pointing at him.

‘They sensed an enemy approaching and acted on their own. It’s safe to say that these Innate Treasures are now Noe’s.’

But there was a catch. Grid realized Noe couldn’t control them yet.

[You aren’t in a position to fight me right now, are you?]

Hanul’s intent was engraved all around him. At the same time, Grid detected an anomaly. Something was approaching, something far more powerful than Du Baeryong, who claimed to be an immortal. This presence seemed to vehemently proclaim that they were the strongest in the world.

[She calls herself a golden immortal. She seems to be the strongest in the upper world.]

Golden immortal was the realm that followed after true immortal. Realistically, golden immortals were the strongest immortals, since great immortals were unlikely to exist. Many immortals stayed in the true immortal realm while great immortals were unlikely to even exist.

Hanul looked a bit tired but there wasn’t a single scratch on him. This was proof that he hadn’t fought the enemy and only fled.

Grid frowned as he stared at Hanul. “Wait... Have you been on the run all this time?”

Hanul snorted.

[Do you think I have been analyzing Rebecca’s light all these years just to run away?]

“So what’s going on, then?”

[I needed to take a break after a fierce battle, so I was buying time to recover.]

“But you don’t look like you’ve been fighting.”

[I healed back the damage I took over time. I’m sure you already know I can do that, right? Beings like us must always maintain our dignity.]

Grid was still skeptical.

The sky turned dark. Hanul immediately turned into light and left. Grid also had a bad feeling and grabbed Noe before using Shunpo.

At around the same time, a huge mountain fell right where Grid had been just seconds ago. If Grid had hesitated even a little bit, he would’ve been crushed by the mountain at the bottom of the sea.

A chill went down Grid’s spine. He heard a strange woman’s voice.

“Someone who has been on the run for almost a month is talking about dignity? Ridiculous.”

An entire month was a long time indeed. Grid’s heart was beating quickly. He had a really bad feeling about this. A golden immortal woman had been relentlessly pursuing Hanul from the East Continent. She was clad in a gorgeous golden robe and her red eyes stared at Grid with interest.

“You are naturally strong and have learned quite a few useful techniques. If the two of you team up, you won’t need to run away from me, right?”

“What...?”

No matter how much Grid said that he had no eternal enemy, he never imagined that he would one day team up with Hanul. He scowled when he remembered the yangbans that Hanul had created and the countless people who died because of the quest Hanul had offered.

[Yes, from the very beginning, you fell right into my trap.]

Hanul seemed eager to team up with Grid. He blatantly provoked the woman.

Grid glared as if he wanted to kill him.

“You really want to do this? Don’t you have any pride?”

[Have you forgotten that I reached out to Zik? From the day Rebecca defeated me, I have only thought of revenge. Everything that happens along the way is trivial. Putting aside my hatred for you, I am willing to team up with you.]

Grid suddenly thought of something. At one point, he had seriously discussed with Lauel the idea of invading Asgard. Lauel had considered an alliance with the Hwan Kingdom a key aspect in this hypothetical invasion.

The stronger one’s influence was, the more one had to know how to exclude personal feelings.

“Tsk.”

Grid tutted and stood beside Hanul.