Chapter 479. Looking Up and Down

Chi-Woo and the Abyss King clashed. A club of light collided with the flowing darkness. Boom! The atmosphere thundered violently. It felt as if the entire world was shaking from the collision alone. The club made of light and the iron mace shook, and Chi-Woo and the Abyss King exchanged glances before backing away. But before the Abyss King could take another step backward, the club swung his way.

—This is nothing…!

The Abyss King yelled and swung his mace—no, that was what he tried to do when a loud bang exploded. Before he could finish swinging his mace once more, the Abyss King was left looking dumbfounded. His surroundings were fluctuating recklessly as if time was quickly rewinding. It was then he realized that he was flying across the air, and as soon as he came to the realization, he smashed into the ground. He left a deep indentation and skittered a considerable distance away.

Never in his wildest imagination did he think that he would roll on the ground like this after becoming the Abyss King of this empty world. It was a very humiliating moment, but the Abyss King didn’t have time to dwell on it. It was because as soon as he managed to raise his head, he saw darkness flow out of his body like vapor. The part of his dark armor that s.h.i.+elded his stomach was broken. Until now, the armor hadn’t cracked a single time since he became the Abyss King.

It wasn’t a critical hit. Still, he was shocked that his armor would be damaged after a single collision. He thought he had surely blocked Chi-Woo’s attack, but that wasn’t the case.

“What to do now?”

He heard footsteps then.

“It looks quite expensive. Did you get insurance for it?”

The Abyss King regained his senses after hearing Chi-Woo’s voice.

—I don’t know what you’re saying, but…anyways, this is surprising.

The Abyss King expressed his admiration while raising himself up.

—You are the first one to have damaged this armor.

Chi-Woo’s mouth twisted upon hearing the Abyss King’s complimentary tone.

“Is that so? Would you give me anything other than compliments? For instance—” Chi-Woo yelled and simultaneously swung his club. “What about one of your arms!”

An enormous explosion burst around the Abyss King again, but it failed to reach the King.

—It seems I underestimated my opponent too much.

The Abyss King had already backed away and fixed his posture. Then, he asked.

—Do you know the significance of an armor?

“What?”

—One wears armor to protect themselves from outside attacks.

The battle had already begun. Whatever the Abyss King said, Chi-Woo had absolutely no intention of playing along with the trickeries. He wanted to test if the Abyss King would continue to flap his mouth after he crushed his jaws.

—But it’s different for me.

The dark armor s.h.i.+elding the Abyss King began to split into many pieces the next moment. Chi-Woo frowned at the falling armor pieces. Though the Abyss King’s armor had been damaged from the first attack, that had only been a small part of it. Furthermore, Chi-Woo’s last attack had missed. In other words, the Abyss King’s armor wasn’t crumbling because of his attack, but by the King’s own will.

—My armor exists to protect others from me.

The Abyss King’s body was revealed. There was nothing but darkness. Chi-Woo knew the Abyss King wasn’t human, but his body was so strange that it was hard to describe. If he had to put into words what it looked like, he would say the Abyss King’s body was like the miniature version of the darkness giant he had made. It also looked like a shadow.

Of course, Chi-Woo knew there was no way the Abyss King was simply that. And there were countless arms and legs the size of ants rising and falling all over the Abyss King’s body. It looked like a pitch-black swamp where a hundred thousand or more people were swimming, all crammed together. Chi-Woo let out a humorless laugh.

“Did your armor weigh you down or something? Was it like a thousand or two thousand tons?”

—Rather than that…it’s just that my body is so difficult to control, even for me.

The Abyss King gave him a cryptic smile.

—Also, I realized that I couldn’t go easy on you.

Though it was by the standard from when he was his normal self, the Abyss King realized that Chi-Woo was someone he had to go all out on from the beginning. The broken armor pieces on the ground and even the iron mace in his hand were sucked into his body. The more the Abyss King absorbed, the more his darkness deepened as if he was sucking in even the light around him, and the arms and legs as well as the screeching that came from inside him became fiercer. Chi-Woo also felt the energy flowing out of the Abyss King suddenly deepen like it was becoming more compressed and st.u.r.dier.

—Kuaaah…!

The Abyss King’s whole body shuddered. Soon afterward, he raised his head and shot off like a bullet. His speed was incomparable to before, and there had been no warning signs. Then, he extended his fist forward. It was a simple and rough attack, but when Chi-Woo instinctively raised his club, what happened next made him flinch in shock. Countless hands sprouted out of the Abyss King’s arm and stretched toward him.

Without any hesitation, Chi-Woo’s AI Armor deployed in all directions when it was known to concentrate on the exact point of attack. Then, it maddeningly pounded, scratched, and wavered in the air to block the Abyss King’s attacks. The number of hands that came out of the Abyss King’s body was so numerous that it blocked Chi-Woo’s vision, and for a moment, Chi-Woo thought he was in a dark room with no light.

And besides these endless hands that extended toward Chi-Woo, the Abyss King was also swinging his main body’s fist at him. Chi-Woo blocked the attack with his club, but the pressure he felt while holding his weapon was so intense it felt like both his hands were getting crushed. The Abyss King continued to push, landing a punch on him and sending him flying across the air, but that wasn’t the end of it.

—If this isn’t enough…!

Seeing that Chi-Woo was enduring better than he looked, the Abyss King’s body fluctuated and wiggled. After the wavering stopped, he kicked off the floor.

Splaaas.h.!.+ His speed wouldn’t be compared to a bullet at this point. Seeing how he only left a hazy afterimage, his speed was closer to the speed of light. The Abyss King caught up to the still flying Chi-Woo and bombarded him with attacks. Bam, baaaam! Even Chi-Woo couldn’t counter all the countless flurry of attacks that were pouring onto him with just his club. The AI Armor was barely blocking many of the attacks, and Chi-Woo felt the energy supply going from his heart to the AI Armor quickly depleting. It was as if a furiously circulating motor engine was screeching before it burnt to a crisp.

—Not yet…not yet…!

The Abyss King didn’t stop. He followed Chi-Woo closely behind and landed a whirl of attacks on Chi-Woo like a storm. The AI Armor that had been barely managing to keep up started to make cracking noises throughout the barrier. Eventually, it couldn’t hold on any longer, and a part of it broke. It happened because though Chi-Woo still had mana left, the Abyss King’s attack speed surpa.s.sed the AI Armor’s regenerative rate. The Abyss King’s darkness rushed into the openings and struck Chi-Woo’s body.

When bright red blood spurted out like a fountain, the Abyss King was about to rejoice. Yet he soon saw Chi-Woo’s divine blood flow back into his body, and his injury healed in an instant. At the sight of such unbelievable regenerative power, the Abyss King momentarily stopped attacking and hesitated. He felt a mysterious sense of danger.

He was attacking with all his might, yet only managed to inflict an injury that his opponent could easily recover from. A seed of doubt formed in his heart, but the Abyss King quickly shook his head.

—…No wonder.

In the first place, the Abyss King had suspected that Chi-Woo wasn’t pure human anyway. Though it had been before he demonstrated his full power, there was no way that a being who managed to crack his armor at the beginning of their fight would be a mere human.

—Then…!

It was too early to make judgments. The Abyss King’s body wavered more strongly than at any other time. Then, he warily settled down on the ground. His body had become something other than what could simply be described as dark or black. Soon afterward, he disappeared without a trace. No form or sound could be spotted, and an uninformed bystander would’ve only seen a dark meteor-like shape move at the speed of light. In a flash, the Abyss King swirled around Chi-Woo.

It didn’t take him even a second, and in that short time frame, he poured out countless attacks. After repeating this process a couple of times, he felt something break and crumble. Seizing the chance, the Abyss King clutched his hands together and raised them high in the air. Then the numerous dark hands flowing out of the Abyss King’s body likewise joined hands and struck Chi-Woo hard.

White light descended vertically across the air and even went through the ground. Like stuffing food into an already full mouth, s.p.a.ce began to swell up in lumps starting from where Chi-Woo was shoved into. Soon afterward, there was a series of explosions as parts of the ground burst, unable to contain the impact any longer, and debris shot up to the sky. There was heavy smoke and a giant mushroom cloud as if a nuclear bomb had gone off.

Eventually, the smoke faded little by little and revealed a wasteland that looked like it had been ravaged by war. The crater looked like one an asteroid would leave on the ground, and standing on the edge of it, the Abyss King exhaled the breath he had been holding.

—Huff…puff…!

He inhaled and exhaled roughly for a while and laughed. Just like how he had absorbed the Abyss Queen and the Seven Chasms one by one, the Abyss King had absorbed countless other existences to this day. Though the beings he absorbed were biologically dead, their consciousness remained because only then could the Abyss King wholly use and accept them. It was an extraordinary ability, but it did come with some side effects.

The more existences he accepted, the heavier the burden the Abyss King felt. This was what he meant when he explained to Chi-Woo that even he had a hard time controlling his body. Thus, it had been a gamble for him to discard the armor that had helped him suppress the consciousnesses inside him and thereby relieved his burden. Still, he was confident to almost certainty. After absorbing the girl named Flora, the Abyss King felt his control and authority increase incomparably from before.

This was how he had succeeded in controlling the numerous consciousnesses earlier; not just once, but three times. He had succeeded in suppressing them and managed to endure when using all of them at once. This was clear proof that his power had risen to new heights.

Yet power was like the ocean one drank from when thirsty. Though he had gotten his hands on a power much more resilient than before, he felt a thirst he couldn’t put into words. From the battle just now, the Abyss King realized that Chi-Woo hadn’t been lying. He was beginning to feel his limits when he used his newly-gained power for the third time. The heavens signified a vast, limitless universe, but the fact he felt his limits meant that he hadn’t yet fully embraced the heavens.

Still, it was fine. He found the solution to this problem, which was Chi-Woo. And he had just smashed this solution down, so all he had to do was eat Chi-Woo as he had always done.

—But besides that, it really is worrisome. What if there’s not even a trace of him left? Maybe I should’ve held back a bit. No, no. He wasn’t someone I could hold back on.

The Abyss King murmured to himself like a madman and chuckled. Then one step at a time, he walked forward.

—…

Yet he couldn’t take the next step. The cloud of dust rising everywhere around them eventually settled. The Abyss King looked down at the center of the crater where the smoke was thickest and stammered.

—W-What…