Overgeared

A strange sound rang out. It was from the back of Pungsa’s hand that slammed against the side of Grid’s stabbing sword. His skin was peeled off and his bones were crushed by the Yellow Dragon sword energy, which flew wildly like its appearance. Blood fluttered along with the Flower sword energy that was shaped like petals. It was proof that the created god wasn’t a concept, but a living thing. Even if he wanted to deny it, he was close to a human god.

Then Grid’s sword was trapped in the clouds that Unsa had relentlessly gathered. The Yellow Dragon sword energy lost its target and Grid became defenseless for a moment. However, the Three Masters couldn’t target any of Grid’s gaps. Grid’s response was too good. He immediately activated the power of the Blue Dragon and scattered far more powerful lightning than before through the clouds. He was using the enemy’s power in reverse.

‘This damn monstrous guy.’

There were many eyes on the commotion. The humans on the ground were strengthening the divinity of the Three Masters in real time. The belief that the god they served couldn’t be defeated gave the Three Masters great strength.

That’s right—to the people of the Pa Kingdom, Grid was an unidentified invader. They still weren’t freed from the false myth despite the resurrection of the White Tiger. The existence of the Three Masters was stretching out to hold onto the false myth.

The Three Masters recovered from their wounds and quickly linked up. They were beings born as heavenly gods and had never set foot on the surface before. They actively exploited their aerial combat experience, which was relatively superior to Grid.

They pierced the vast sky and repeatedly turned and maneuvered to disrupt Grid. By making it impossible to distinguish between top and bottom, this made it difficult for Grid’s attacks to hit. At the same time, they were looking for chances to counterattack.

As many as three gods were working together to subdue just one Grid. They did their best without letting down their guard.

“Sigh.”

The Three Masters kept accelerating at certain points like they were building a virtual wall in the sky.

Grid paused for a moment during their dizzying joint attacks and took a deep breath.

Breath of the Yellow Dragon—a Breath with a yellow color flowed out. In an instant, Grid’s black hair was dyed the same color as his divinity. It was an optical illusion created by the exquisite overlapping of his divinity.

Grid’s hair sometimes looked like long, sunset colored hair. The length was to the extent of covering his back. It went well together. Thanks to the T-zone that developed enough to cast many shades on his face, Grid could digest a surprising number of styles.

‘Will the level of the enemies I have to fight in the future be this much?’

Between the start of the battle and the exchange of several blows, the Three Masters experienced a radical development. They seemed to be showing that there was no limit to the power that Hanul bestowed among them as they gradually changed the weather to fit the battle. By this point, it was at a level where Grid got the feeling that they were being nourished.

Grid endured the pincer attack of the Three Masters and was deep in thought.

Emperor Grid was uncomfortable in many ways. It was due to the social status of the most extreme. The only people Emperor Grid could be polite to in public were his parents or the tower members. He wasn’t allowed to bow to other subjects due to matters of the law. He became lonely on his own. There were too many things to consider regarding his words and actions, so he was inwardly stressed.

On the other hand, Overgeared God Grid was relatively free. It was because in the world of the gods, he was the youngest. In particular, the fact that he didn’t have to be afraid of failure was a huge advantage. Who would blame him for losing to transcendents or Absolutes whose rank was much higher than his own? There was a fear that his status would be lowered in the event of an extreme situation like death, but at the very least, he hadn’t experienced a crisis of this magnitude just yet.

Fortunately, there were those who helped him every time.

This time, things were different. The Pa Kingdom was still under the control of the Hwan Kingdom. It was too far and there was symbolically too much difference for the gods of the Overgeared World and the tower members to intervene immediately.

Summoning the apostles was like bringing them to the jaws of death. The Red Phoenix and the Black Tortoise were unable to leave their respective territories and the Blue Dragon and the White Tiger had just been resurrected and weren’t in a perfect condition. There was no way that a dragon would suddenly appear for no reason...

Grid had to win this battle purely with his own strength. It was a victory that should’ve been won.

The Three Masters—they were close confidants of a God of the Beginning and chief gods of the Hwan Kingdom, but they were inferior in comparison. The role in managing the weather could be replaced by the Four Auspicious Beasts right now. Even Zik hadn’t bowed his head to the Three Masters. If Grid couldn’t defeat them alone, the prestige that he used to establish a new divine world called the Overgeared World wouldn’t stand.

Grid recalled it—in the first place, the gods of the Hwan Kingdom were losers. They were the ones who failed to protect Hanul, a God of the Beginning. Overall, it was right to consider them incompetent.

‘I have to unconditionally win.’

This was a fight that shouldn’t be lost. It was the case right now.

Grid’s conscious mind gradually changed. It was the mindset of Emperor Grid, not Overgeared God Grid. The very concept of failure was erased from it. Grid once again used the Flower and Wave sword dances. He launched a same volume offensive against the Three Masters, who used wide-area attacks with rain, lightning strikes, and storms. He made full use of the Undefeated King’s Swordsmanship, which could nullify skills.

The sky seemed to be going crazy. The raging storm stopped like it was a lie and lightning strikes fell while dyed with the glow of the sunset.

A battle of the gods was more terrible than imagined. It felt like the world was screaming. It was a war between beings who lived forever, so perhaps it would never end. It made people feel that type of fear.

“Ugh...”

In fact, the situation in the sky was changing very rapidly. The wounds on the bodies of the Three Masters increased. Every time Grid’s sword left a trajectory, it gave the illusion that it was segmenting the sky stained with the sunset. The Three Masters couldn’t easily bear the power contained within it. Every time Grid used the six fusion sword dance, they barely survived by using a dozen or so yangbans as shields.

We can really lose...

The Three Masters were crushed by a fear comparable to that of being chased by the god of war and they started to pray earnestly.

May Hanul guide us.

Just then—

[A quest has occurred.]

A notification window popped up in Grid’s field of view.

[Law Established by Heaven]

[Difficulty: SSS+

From now on, every time you get hurt by the Three Masters, the surrounding environment will resemble the Hwan Kingdom.

From now on, every time you injure the Three Masters, the surrounding environment will resemble the Hwan Kingdom.]

“......?”

The quest that appeared. It was a rare quest set as the ‘highest difficulty’ and the content was very absurd for the current Grid. Every time the Three Masters hurt him or every time he wounded them, the surrounding environment would resemble the Hwan Kingdom? This meant that the Three Masters, who had been weakened in the aftermath of descending to the surface, would naturally regain their strength.

It was a one-sided unfavorable condition for Grid.

Grid was inwardly bewildered, while the expressions of the Three Masters surrounding Grid were also stiff with tension. They were listening to Hanul’s voice. It was a divine message. They received the guidance that the more they were hurt or inflicted damage on Grid, the more they would recover.

It was the power of the God of the Beginning, Hanul. It was the power to issue quests to enemies or allies and to issue unilateral penalties or rewards. It had empowered the yangban Garam in the past. It was also the cause behind the deaths of the hundreds of blacksmiths who followed Grid to the East Continent.

“......”

Grid’s expression changed after grasping the situation. His determined face became filled with killing intent.

Gulp.

The Three Masters gulped. The reason their expressions were stiff after receiving Hanul’s divine message was simple. The divine message that stated that the surface would be transformed into a divine world every time they hurt or were hurt by the Overgeared God—the implications were great.

Hanul set the rank of the Overgeared God much higher than the Three Masters. This was why a divine message with such advantageous content was bestowed.

“Why...?”

Could it be that such a large gap had opened up with the one who had been a mere human being just a few years ago? They couldn’t admit it. It was clear that Hanul had misunderstood something.

“Ohhhh!”

The Three Masters created another storm and rushed toward Grid. For the first time since their birth, they stirred themselves to act. It was an effort to shake off their fear.

Grid was recovering the God Hands. He didn’t know what would happen after seeing the Three Masters using the yangbans as a shield so he sent the 300 God Hands down to the ground just in case. The hands that had been protecting people from being swept away by the aftermath of the battle now lined up on Grid’s left and right sides.

It was a scene like black-gold wings were spread out. The area of the wings increased depending on the direction the swords that the God Hands were armed with were facing and they looked silver at that time.

“Sword dance.”

The Sanctuary of Metal—the landscape of the canyon built by Grid’s mental world was drawn using the swords as a brush. It was the precursor to Mountain Appearance and Flowing Streams. Grid used two types of six fusion sword dances simultaneously with his left hand and his right hand.

He felt a sense of exhaustion that was hard to handle. Grid’s resources such as sword energy and mana were quickly depleted. The reason all the recovery effects were meaningless was because the resources would be depleted again as soon as they were restored. Grid was experiencing exhaustion dozens of times in a matter of seconds.

As the distance from the Three Masters narrowed in real time, his vision darkened dozens of times and he felt dizzy. It had to do with the fluttering of the wings that the God Hands unfolded. It was the aftermath of 300 God Hands performing sword dances in unison. It might be different if Grid was still in a position to be held back by stamina. In other words, it was a challenge that he never would’ve been able to handle if he was in the same position as a normal player.

Thousands of silver lights were drawn in the sky. It was a terrifying sight as if the sky was collapsing. It was a tsunami of sword dances that devoured the Three Masters. In the eyes of the people, it was an unusual incident that occurred when Grid flapped his wings several times.

“Ah...”

The Three Masters couldn’t even scream properly. They were torn into tens of thousands of pieces. The environment of the surface soon resembled the Hwan Kingdom, but it was meaningless. They could no longer fight after losing their bodies and urgently escaped from the scene. Their status felt as damaged as their broken bodies.

An old myth filled the minds of those who saw it. When Hanul came to the surface, he had hundreds of servants who spread civilization to humanity. Among them, the Three Masters were the best at preventing disasters and helping with agriculture.

...This was a lie. Their ancestors established a civilization without the help of the gods. They prayed to God White Tiger when they had a hard time. It was only then that their god was born. This myth that depicted humanity in such a lowly manner couldn’t be true.

[The people of the Pa Kingdom are liberated from the myth filled with lies.]

[The myth of the White Tiger and the Four Auspicious Beasts is resurrected in the Pa Kingdom.]

[The myth of the Overgeared God has taken root in the Pa Kingdom.]

[The rate at which the Pa Kingdom is fused into the Overgeared World has increased.]

The fake gods retreated and the fur of the White Tiger fluttered like a dandelion in the blue sky. It was the divinity of the guardian god that permeated and nourished the land of the Pa Kingdom that had been barren for many years. At the center of it was Grid.

Ahuheung...

The White Tiger and the people of the Pa Kingdom bowed their heads.