Nameless Death’s plan was simple: One-shot kill.
All the monsters in this forest and the surrounding Site were left alive as Berserker had gotten bored of killing their species.
That didn’t make them weak.
Quite the opposite.
Every one of them radiated a divine presence.
They were Gods.
But Nameless Death had the Godslayer title, and coupled with Ragnarok Exhalation Dragon Breath, his most devastating ability, he could deal obscene amounts of damage, especially since the breath combined Chaos (Void + Death) with Fire elemental into a single, devastating force to create Chaos Fire.
If he hit point-blank, it might be enough.
He launched his punch.
But the monster moved faster than he’d expected.
A ripple of mind magic pulsed out from its body.
Nameless Death froze mid-strike. His mind was breached, and the monster commanded him to stop.
The monster tilted its flaming head and stared at him.
There was no expression to read, but the intent was clear. What gave this Stage-3 mortal the confidence to challenge it?
It crouched slowly and leaned closer, as if trying to understand. Then it prepared to crush him.
But something went wrong.
Nameless Death moved.
He already had high resistance to mind attacks due to him being a Heavenbreaker, and coupled with increased mental fortitude provided by [The Man Who Stood Against Adversity] title, he could shrug off the monster’s mental attack without wasting even a split second.
The monster reacted too late.
He grabbed its arm, clenched tight, and used his strongest attack.
Ragnarok Exhalation Dragon Breath
A torrent of violet-black flame roared out of his mouth.
The ground burned. The sky melted. A hundred miles of forest vanished in an instant, incinerated into flickering cinders.
The monster screamed. Its body was charred, and its black flame-head dimmed for a moment.
That should’ve been it.
But it wasn’t.
The creature was still alive.
Badly injured, yes. But alive.
The monster was a Stage-4 God, and it lived on the Site, where battle to death were daily occurrences.
In this dog-eat-dog world, each monster was strong enough that they could destroy a world the same rank as them.
Needless to say, it could tank Nameless Death’s strongest attack even if it had been caught by surprise.
The monster roared.
It grabbed the arm he was still holding it with, and then—
It smashed him into the ground like a rag doll. Once, twice, three times. The crater grew deeper with each slam.
Nameless Death coughed blood, then used Gap Movement again, blinking a few hundred meters away.
His entire body ached.
He gritted his teeth, and prepared to retreat when suddenly the world began to change.
“…shit.”
The monster lifted one arm and spread its fingers.
The World.
Reality bent.
The sky cracked like glass, then reformed.
The trees disappeared.
The earth twisted into molten lines, and the surroundings stilled.
Wind froze in place, and time no longer flowed naturally.
Nameless Death rolled to his feet and healed himself quickly with Shadow Core Concept.
His breath was ragged, but his thoughts were steady.
‘If this monster’s World is illusion or mind-based, then I can ignore it. That’s my only chance.’
But then he felt the gentle pulse through the atmosphere followed by ticking sounds in the air, and a strange pull on his limbs.
Time.
The World was time-based.
“Fuck, of course it was not built on the only thing I’m resistant to.”
He clenched his fists.
His body had already started to slow down.
His muscles resisted his will, and even blinking took longer. His heartbeat echoed like a drum in a cave.
Meanwhile, the monster sped up. It moved like a ghost made of lightning.
The first punch hit his jaw. He tried to raise his arm, but he moved too slowly. The second punch caved in his side. The third sent him flying.
A moment later, the monster appeared behind him and kicked him into the ground again.
He barely registered the pain as his shoulder was blasted into oblivion. Before he could heal, another blow landed. Then another.
The forest around them had been reduced to a broken, empty space warped by time distortions. Time bubbles flickered in and out—some slowing things, others accelerating them wildly.
Nameless Death tried to move away again, but the time-based World slowed the Gap Movement.
His body flickered, only to reappear in the same spot.
“Damn it!” he growled, spitting blood.
The monster hovered just a few meters away.
It was watching him, trying to understand why the man in front of him was opposing the law of jungle. What give him confidence in challenging a stronger opponent?
Nameless Death forced himself up.
His limbs shook, but his will didn’t falter.
This wasn’t the first time he’d been outmatched. He didn’t remember those battles, but his burning will roared, showing no signs of fear.
Of course, he wasn’t just fighting blindly.
He had a cheat. One that was unique to him.
[Time Dilation (Time Element Concept) copy percentage: 0.1%]
[The World (Time Dilation Concept-based World) copy percentage: 0.0001%]
The percentage rose, bit by bit, every second he stayed inside the monster’s World.
Of course, in exchange, he was being completely demolished.
Even as his body shattered from the monster’s relentless blows, his mind churned at speeds far faster than the time around him. Each microsecond felt like a stretch of thought.
‘The World overrides reality. It fuses a concept into a localized dimension and forces that concept to apply universally inside it.’
Nameless Death’s thoughts sharpened.
‘In this case, the monster’s concept manipulates time by accelerating itself while slowing me. Even the time elementals I generate inside its World are bent to follow its rules.’
That was the power of a god.
They were not just overwhelming strong.
They could manipulate the opponent’s element, and force the opponent’s elementals to follow the God’s concept.
It meant the God had subdued the opponent’s elementals, and could now control them freely.
This was the power of The World.
Only one of two things could override a World: another World of equal or higher Conceptual strength, or a technique that was simply too strong.
Nameless Death had neither of the two.
But giving up wasn’t an option.
He summoned his remaining World Energy and activated his Shadow Core Concept to rebuild his destroyed body.
A subtle shift took place the moment the energy cloaked his body.
The time around him stabilized.
It was no longer slowed, or under the monster’s control.
It was as if, in covering himself with World Energy, he had established a micro-World of his own, which was enough to protect him from the monster’s World.
“I can do this?” he muttered in disbelief, blinking at his own hands. “That’s actually awesome—”
A black flame fist slammed into his face, blowing his head off before the words finished leaving his mouth.
The monster didn’t dare give him a chance to pull up more tricks.
It struck again, tearing through Nameless Death’s ribs, spine, and torso.
And yet, before the body could even hit the ground, it reformed.
Bones snapped back into place. Flesh regrew.
Nameless Death returned to the fight.
Punch for punch.
His attacks barely scratched the monster. Its own, in contrast, tore through him like paper.
Yet, he didn’t stop.
Somehow, Nameless Death understood this was the amalgamation of his existence – a relentless drive to move forward.
[Time Dilation (Time Element Concept) copy percentage: +0.1%]
[The World (Time Dilation Concept-based World) copy percentage: +0.0001%]
The fight became a brutal, endless cycle of death and regeneration.
Nameless Death lunged, and threw a punch.
The strike barely landed when his body was torn apart again.
His limbs were ripped off, head was crushed, and spine was shattered. But he instantly reformed and attacked again.
To the monster, it was like swatting at an insect that wouldn’t die.
The only reason Nameless Death could keep going was because of his sheer stubbornness to give up.
[Time Dilation (Time Element Concept) copy percentage: +0.1%]
[The World (Time Dilation Concept-based World) copy percentage: +0.0001%]
‘I can win if I can drag this fight, but…’
The speed of copying was far too slow.
He had less than 24 hours left before the timer given by Quest and the berserker ran out. He didn’t had time to waste on a monster, since he planned to fight more monsters and clear out the ants.
‘I shouldn’t wait for the Concept and World to copy themselves naturally. It’s not an option.’
He decided to take the plunge.
This time, he made a decision that went against every survival instinct.
He dismissed his protective World Energy layer.
Instantly, the monster’s World clamped down again.
Time slowed. His movements dulled. The weight of the Concept bore down on him like an ocean.
But then—
[Time Dilation (Time Element Concept) copy percentage: +0.5%]
[The World (Time Dilation Concept-based World) copy percentage: +0.0005%]
The copy progress rate multiplied fivefold.
He gritted his teeth as his body was reduced to paste again.
But his willpower burned with determination.
The monster noticed something was wrong.
There was no way the Stage-3 mortal was fighting like a rabid dog without a plan.
He had to be killed before whatever he was planning became successful.
Suddenly, the monster did something Nameless Death didn’t expect.
It turned its powers inward.
A pulse of distorted mind energy rippled from its body and flowed into itself.
“Did it just…?”
The monster had used its own mind-affecting powers on itself.
It had driven itself insane.
Its body shook violently. Its movements became erratic.
But its speed? Its strength?
Multiplied several folds.
A wild punch tore through Nameless Death’s ribs, shattering them again.
This time, the blow didn’t stop there—it sent him flying through several mountains before he could even process what happened.
Another punch came from the side.
His torso exploded.
He reformed, only for a blazing fist to slam into his back and bury him into the ground.
Then came a knee to the chest, a hammerfist to the skull, a dozen more blows raining down in a brutal frenzy.
The monster had stopped trying to win. It understood the mortal was immortal.
Now, it wanted to break his will.
If it couldn’t overpower his immortality, it would drown him in fear.
Eve the mightiest warrior had fallen to fear. The mortal would be no different.
[Time Dilation (Time Element Concept) total copy percentage: 82.3%]
[The World (Time Dilation Concept-based World) total copy percentage: 0.0834%]
He was nearly there when the monster suddenly screeched.
It was a roar of rage.
Nameless Death coughed blood, spitting a tooth to the side.
“Well, don’t tell me you are already getting tired? Because I can do this all day.”
He didn’t expect a response.
But the monster paused.
Just for a split second, and Nameless Death wouldn’t let go of such an opportunity.
He hit the monster with Ragnarok Exhalation Dragon Breath.
It was able to dodge, but a small flicker of the purple flames touched its body.
The monster screeched in pain. The flames worsened its injuries from before.
And finally….
[Time Dilation (Time Element Concept) total copy percentage: 100%]
A wave of Time Elemental burst out from Nameless Death.
He used World Energy to stop the foreign World from slowing him, and used the newly gained Concept to hasten himself.
Unlike techniques whose power was determined by user and technique rank, the Concepts were powered by the user alone.
Nameless Death’s Time Dilation was far slower than the monster’s Time Dilation.
But…
He didn’t need to be as fast as it was.
He only needed to be fast enough to use Ragnarok Exhalation Dragon Breath in close range.
Magic circles appeared before Nameless Death’s mouth, and they spewed devastating purple flames.
The monster had to sacrifice an arm by cutting it off to dodge the attack successfully.
Nameless Death had expected it. The monster was fast enough to dodge, even if by only a hair’s breadth.
However, his goal was completed when the monster cut off it’s arm.
Nameless Death jumped forward and grabbed the severed limb.
He used the Concept of True Darkness which he had regained several hours ago.
Memories sung to Nameless Death, but he quickly suppressed them.
It wasn’t the memories he wanted.
What he wanted was the monster’s strength.
The monster, realizing something horrible was about to happen, moved quickly and punched towards Nameless Death’s head.
However…
Nameless Death grabbed his fist and stopped it mid air.
“Haah, I devoured only an arm and I am already this strong? Damn, as expected of a Stage-4 monster, you are a treasure trove.”
The monster tried to pull back it’s fist but failed.
It didn’t realize that it was still stronger than Nameless Death by a large margin.
Nameless Death stopped its attack because the monster was afraid and couldn’t put its complete strength behind the punch.
Even though the monster had been the one attacking until now.
Even though it had used the violence it learned from living tens of thousands of years on Nameless Death.
Nameless Death was not the one cowering in fear.
It was the monster.