Above Your Head

"Tell me about my father."

"Again? Ah, ah... So, the day it rained like a waterfall..." She carried on talking slowly. It was a story she had told more than a hundred times. "I went up the hill behind me. I felt like I couldn\'t stand this damned world anymore, but he was lying next to the big tree that was at the peak of the hill." As she stuttered and continued elaborating, her face started to become invigorated. She stared into the air absent-mindedly, while he, a sturdy young man standing in front of her, looked on expressionlessly.

"He was a really strange fellow. I thought it was a mannequin at first. His whole body had been mutilated to the point where he lost both his arms, and his internal organs were revealed. However, strangely, there wasn\'t any blood flowing. Something even more interesting was the fact that he recovered from that messed-up state after I looked after him for about two weeks. He had somehow regenerated both his arms too." The woman was staring up at the empty ceiling and, as she spoke nonsense, her gaze was already out of focus. She was no longer looking at reality, returning to a past that was decades ago.

"I nursed him back to health while dealing with the druggies every day. I don\'t know why I did that. I was in agony anyway. Even though I thought I was going to die that day... Keuckkk!" She coughed violently, blood covering the blanket on her body. However, no one cared about that dirty piece of cloth… No one could tell whether it was blood that had splattered, or something else. "It was fun. Yeah, it was fun. He was a weird guy, but he looked at me with no prejudice. I thought I could live in this hell if it was with him..."

Unfortunately, the man quietly breathed his last one day. It was as if he was just sleeping, and it happened after she had conceived Juan. She continued, "You see, I already had several abortions and my body could no longer give birth either."

"Mother."

"Yes, Juan. Mom is right here, Juan," the woman stuttered and extended her hand to hold Juan\'s hand.

Juan whispered as he held her hand, "What did you say father\'s name was again?"

"Ahh, his name was very unusual too," she laughed as if she found it ridiculous. "He asked me to call him Unnamed. I don\'t want or even need his name. My god, if he didn\'t want to tell me his name, he could have just said so. No matter what his name was... No matter what kind of existence he was, I didn\'t...mind..." She stuttered in the middle of her grumbles, slowly losing strength in her body. She constantly struggled between the organizations that washed off blood with blood, and she was in agony her whole life after being born in Mexico. It was the lonesome death of a woman who lived the life of a prostitute.

"..." Juan, the son of a prostitute, looked down at his mother\'s body which was slowly going cold. To one\'s surprise, there was neither agony or sorrow in his eyes… Boom boom! The sound of knocking could be heard on the door. However, he did not care. It was a sound he had been hearing for more than 10 years.

"There\'s no particular need to hold a funeral." Juan stood still and personally witnessed his mother turning into a corpse. His mother\'s life was undoubtedly a tragedy, but that tragedy was of no special significance in Mexico. Victims like her were so common that they were all over the place.

The war between cartels resulted in more than 10,000 victims in a single year alone, and gangsters, civilians, soldiers, as well as policemen, of course, were amongst the victims. Furthermore, the method of killing was so very cruel that an execution by the firing squads of the cartels and being left in the desert, or a beheading, was considered civil. Other methods included digging up the internal organs or cutting the genitals into pieces. If it were soldiers, these would be considered a gentle death in their own way.

It was a world full of malice. Even Juan, who lamented it so much, was hardly a good-hearted being. He never had a choice to begin with. Born as the child of a woman who was considered part of the cartel\'s asset, he had no choice but to live a life as a member of a criminal organization. That was why...he felt his will to survive, which resisted the great and mighty Divine Spirit deeply asleep in his soul, became increasingly thin. Now, even the last reason to resist it was gone.

"We\'ll see each other soon anyway."

Boom boom boom! The knocking on the door was getting rough. It was a lot of noise, but there were no protests from the other rooms around. It was unsurprising because the sound only existed in Juan\'s head.

Juan closed his eyes. The world turned dark and there was only a door in front of him. Perhaps the knocks had been too hard because the door had cracks all over and was distorted. However, the door could never be opened unless he allowed it. He put his hand on the handle of the door. An enormous fear surged from his heart at the mere act alone, but it no longer prevented his behavior. He no longer had any lingering affection for his world.

"…After reforming this corrupted world." Upon saying those words, the door opened.

Vol 2. Chapter 26: Dragon Devouring Ghost Blade, and his Brother II (1)

In the past, I also thought that this world was fake. It was a long-standing suspicion I had since long ago, and not one of a child\'s immature thoughts. I first doubted the people around who were fearful and frightful, then history and tradition. Soon, I moved on to the system of the society, as well as its incidents and accidents. Finally, I doubted everything about the world.

\'I couldn\'t help it.\' The world that was reflected in my young eyes had a form that my common sense could not comprehend. They were so obvious and nonsensical that I naturally expected that it would all break one day. Just as Neo who met Morpheus realized the truth of the world, I had always imagined and came to fear the moment when I had to choose between the crossroads of life because I loved a peaceful and quiet life, and I did not want my daily life to be destroyed.

Then, as I grew older, I finally realized the truth of the world. I realized that "It was neither a game nor virtual reality…"

To a certain extent, there was some reason why I was surprised and flustered upon meeting an extraterrestrial being. It was because I faced a completely different development from my initial expectations of someday realizing the truth. As I thought the world in which the titles and stats existed was naturally fake, I expected various futures only to enter one that I couldn\'t even predict. I left Earth, then went to war under the affiliation of the Empire in a universe which was rare even in the Great Universe, and finally became the Emperor.

"K-Keukkk... You, what are you? What the hell is this? What the fuck have you done?" There were appalling groans coming from here and there, but I ignored them and read the text that appeared in front of me.

Mission Generated!

Player Killer

The Selected Ones are comrades and rivals with a common goal. Also, the competition between them often ends with split blood. However, even if it does, it is something that should all be done in due… You have dealt with the Player Killer!

They are cancerous existences of the System. They are those who have given up further growth. Mankind will progress in a better direction as the Player Killers hunt. How many Player Killers can you kill? Why are you worrying needlessly? You just have to put a bounty on it. - Magic Imperial Princess

Reward for Success - PK Hunter Stage 1 (Semi-permanent Buff. Ranking up is possible according to the numbers hunted)

Penalty for Failure - None

Currently (1,270) people in progress

The text wavered.

Mission cleared!

PK Hunter Stage 1 has been acquired!

Current Record - 3 Kills

\'What the, what is this? Why does it sound like I killed someone when I didn\'t kill anyone? Moreover, the kill count is so vague, 3 kills? How many people do you think are here?\'

I tilted my head because I did not know whether invalidating their neigong was counted as a kill, or if there was another reason. I thought, perhaps, some of them would snap their necks in shock, but there were no signs of such a possibility. The ones who were \'killed\' by me were alive and kicking.

"I, we, did we collapse because we were shot by a gun? Just a bullet could pierce through my self-defense qi?"

"Cold… It\'s cold, Sect Leader-nim..."

"Why, why is my neigong not flowing…?"

The warriors of the Blackmoon Sect, who were all shot once, crawled on the floor while trembling. They were superhumans who could smash a rock with a fist and pierce special allows with a spear thrust, but couldn\'t avoid being neutralized as long as they were hit by the Annihilation Shot.

\'It\'s a little cowardly, but I don\'t have a choice. I can\'t do much with my current power,\' I thought.

Shadow Stalker, which was presented by the Kendler Saints to Emperor Leonhardt, was the product of a superscience that they had created to prove their technological prowess after attaining the peak of the Stage IV Civilization. It could not surpass the divinity and was not able to reach the level of a Transcendence Weapon, but it was a Future Weapon that possibly ranked just a level below.

Each of Shadow Stalker\'s six chambers, which had the form of a revolver, had two applied effects of Time, Space, and Void. The first and second chambers were Time Stop and Time Acceleration. The third and fourth chambers were Space Creation and Space Cutting. The fifth and sixth chambers were Creation and Extinction.

I could apply the necessary effect to the prepared bullet, which did not need to be loaded, just by pulling the trigger of Shadow Stalker. I fired the bullet of the sixth chamber, containing the power of Extinction, among them. The Annihilation Shot was able to erase all their energy by hitting the mark and piercing through the body. That was not all. Before they knew it, the Annihilation Shot that had been embedded in their bodies melted into their blood. Nanobots manufactured in the munitions factory that existed within Shadow Stalker had already dispersed throughout their capillary vessels, so modern surgery techniques could not possibly remove them.

Needless to say, this was a terrible incident for them. However, it was none of my concern. Even if I tweaked the Extinction settings a little bit, their bodies would still have ceased to exist. The fact that I even left them alive was already considered a great mercy.

"What am I going to do with these ahjussis..."

"You... Kwan Dae-ha? Right now, what the hell did you just...?"

I could see Mountain Sword, the only one in our group who came to his senses, making a puzzled expression, but I ignored him. I spoke to Genie, \'What should I do?\'

There are currently tens of thousands of rooms left in the Albatross ship, Captain-nim.

\'Hmm, I don\'t really want to put them there,\' I muttered. Even if they were good-looking ahjussis, was I supposed to bring them to space and send them there? They should just be thankful that I did not simply kill them. "Haih." Eventually, I clicked my tongue and turned my head. "Mountain Sword."

"Ack, uh, yes?"

"I\'ll be on my way."

Be it the Seven Great Households or whatever, it would probably be better to just not accept their protection.