The activation condition for the Oblivion of the Time God: the instant before taking a hit.
To attack in that instant before being struck, I had to throw out my attack in perfect simultaneity with the moment of impact.
That was fine.
I'd been exploiting "moments" all along.
To test what had just occurred to me, I headed to the next floor.
*
Screeeech—
[Defender: Twin-Blade Tarbak (108F)]
A monster with the lower body of a four-legged beast and the upper body of a humanoid clutching a curved blade.
⟨I'll kill youuuu!!⟩
It kicked off the floor and lunged.
First, the judgment of "instant before being struck" had to be established.
There was no easier condition in this tower.
The twin blades in its hands crossed and came slashing down toward both my shoulders.
I stood still.
The moment the blade tips were about to graze my hair—
Piiiiing—!
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
My vision flooded blue and the world slowed.
The Oblivion of the Time God had activated.
*Now.*
I had to use the moment of being attacked to strike back immediately.
The means to do that.
"Black Shift."
Of course it was this.
Flash—!
The fog began to spread.
This was the first time I'd caught the exact moment the black particles dispersed.
And just like that, I slipped behind it.
*Yes…!*
Time was still stretched.
Within that moment, I called up Sword Sovereign Ji-hee's post in my mind.
"Stance 2—*Half Moon*."
A horizontal slash technique that slightly twists the central axis of the torso.
The key was making the cutting arc perfectly level.
Back on floor 102 when I'd first imitated it, I'd just swung the scythe with raw arm strength.
Sloppy. The arc must have been twisted.
But now I could lock in a precise horizontal line from the very point where the blade began to cut.
A true, straight arc. Not a single degree of warp or twist.
Shhhhhhhk—!
The scythe blade drew a perfect semicircle.
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
The moment time returned to its normal flow, the monster's upper body was sliced clean off and went sailing through the air.
Clean.
[Floor-108 Twin-Blade Tarbak defeated]
[Promotion reward: 10,700G acquired!]
"So that's what it was…"
The feedback that lingered at the tip of the scythe.
Satisfaction.
There were no flashy effects whatsoever.
Absurdly plain.
But I was certain. What I'd just done was unmistakably *Half Moon*, Stance 2, executed properly.
Before floor 60, when I'd just been swinging the scythe around, I might have pulled it off by luck once or twice.
It was that simple and unadorned a technique.
Yet within that simplicity lived something profound.
I could see just how sloppily I'd been swinging the scythe all this time.
The corner of my mouth twitched.
At this rate, I felt like I could internalize all the remaining stances.
I headed straight to floor 109.
[Defender: Hell Spider (109F)]
A spider-type demon hanging from the ceiling in wait.
I already knew where it was.
Almost instantaneous.
It descended along its web and extended its venomous fangs.
Shhhhhk—!
Again, I deliberately left myself open.
I waited until the fangs were about to pierce my forehead.
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
Time stretched once more.
I deployed the skill simultaneously.
"Black Shift."
The black fog pushed me beneath the spider's belly.
I entered the shadow it cast and the surroundings darkened.
In that instant, the verse for Stance 3—*Rising Moon*—surfaced in my mind.
*— Like the moon rising to cast darkness over dusk. Slash upward through the twilight.*
The situation matched that verse with uncanny precision.
But the core is the movement.
From below, upward.
I let the rebound from planting my feet travel through my hips to my shoulders, then into the spine of the scythe blade.
And then—
Shhhhhhhk—!!!!
I drove the spine of the scythe up through the Hell Spider's belly and carved all the way to its back.
[Floor-109 Hell Spider defeated]
Floor 110, 111, 112, 113, 114.
Every time I opened a door and stepped in, I let the monsters' full assault land on me.
At every threshold of death, the [Oblivion of the Time God] pulled me back.
And within each of those frozen instants, I honed the Moon Wheel Scythe Method.
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
Stance 1—*Falling Moon*.
*— Let the scythe fall. The moon sets by its own weight.*
Downward slash.
Shk—!
Stance 4—*Shrouded Moon*.
*— Veil the moon and still the madness of the heretic.*
Block.
Clang—!
Stance 2—*Half Moon*.
*— Bite through the waist of the moon lying flat on the horizon.*
Horizontal slash.
Shk—!
Claaang—!
An unstoppable momentum.
Monsters split apart and tumbled across the floor.
And then floor 115.
[Defender: Jet-Black Phantom Armor (115F)]
A massive hollow black suit of armor brought both swords crashing down.
Within the time dilation, I deflected the attack with Stance 4—*Shrouded Moon*—then immediately stepped through Black Shift and leaped into the air.
Trusting the scythe to gravity, I drove my full body weight into Stance 1—*Falling Moon*.
Craaaang—!
The helmet shattered and the armor crumbled.
[Floor-115 Jet-Black Phantom Armor defeated]
[Promotion reward: 11,400G acquired!]
A familiar message appeared.
[Level Up! 120 Lv → 121 Lv]
[Stat Points +3 acquired!]
"Oh."
Unconsciously, I opened the holographic stat allocation window.
I was about to distribute the remaining points evenly between Strength and Agility—
My finger stopped.
"Wait."
My body right now is synchronized to my current stat values.
I'm in the middle of calibrating the Moon Wheel Scythe Method's stances to fit exactly this balance.
So what happens if my stats go up here?
The feel changes.
The centrifugal force when swinging the scythe shifts, and the tempo of twisting my hips falls out of sync.
*The sense I've finally locked in might reset.*
With that thought, I left the stat points unspent and closed the window.
Fully internalizing the remaining stances with my current feel came first.
Only one left.
Stance 5—*Full Moon*. The combo technique said to be the culmination of all stances.
A technique that could only be used after executing Stances 1 through 4 in succession.
"Let's go."
I practiced the basic stances again and broke through floors 116 and 117.
I leveled up once more but didn't allocate the stat points.
*
I opened the door to floor 118.
[Defender: Iron-Armed Gordobas (118F)]
"So this is the one they said has the build for it…"
The moment the door opened, a suffocating pressure crashed into me.
A massive demon with three eyes.
In both its hands were iron maces the size of my entire body.
⟨Grrrrrk—!⟩
Gordobas let out a roar and stomped the floor.
I let the scythe hang loose and stepped into the path of its attack.
It raised the mace high into the air.
Craaaang—!
The instant the mace came plunging down toward the crown of my head—
Piiiiing—!
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
Time stretched.
I used Black Shift to move behind it, then—
"Stance 1—*Falling Moon*!"
Slashed downward.
Shk—!
But it stood there as if it hadn't noticed at all.
The next moment, I was about to activate Stance 2—
But.
*Stance 2 won't work right now…*
Its backward step was about to crush me, so I needed to defend.
Stance 4—*Shrouded Moon*. I angled the flat of the scythe diagonally.
But then.
The instant its sole made contact with the flat of the blade—
Shhhhk—
Even within the stretched time, a terrifying pressure crawled up through my wrists.
*Heavy…!*
I couldn't deflect it.
Its Strength stat had exceeded the limit of what I could absorb.
I'd seen its stats in the gallery info archive and knew its Strength was higher than mine, but I'd thought I could block it with *Shrouded Moon*.
Crrrk—!
I was wrong.
The scythe was being pushed back, about to crush me—
Craaaaaaaaaaaang—!!!!!!
A flash of light bleached my entire vision white.
"…"
It was like taking a flashbang point-blank.
I squeezed my eyes shut and offered my congratulations.
"Congratulations, Wrath of the Sun God…"
This was its first activation.
The solar explosion swept everything around me in all directions.
Whoooosh—!!
When the blast settled and my vision returned.
There was nothing in front of me.
No mace. No monster.
The marble floor had been blown away too.
[Floor-118 Iron-Armed Gordobas defeated]
[Promotion reward: 11,700G acquired!]
[Level Up! 122 Lv → 123 Lv]
[Stat Points +3 acquired!]
I stared blankly into the empty air.
"The range and power seem bigger than what that invader used…"
Maybe because that invader's was inherited from an ancestor, it was weaker.
Either way, the Wrath of the Sun God was absurdly convenient.
But this wasn't what I wanted.
Vaporizing the mob like this was a problem.
I wanted to learn the Moon Wheel Scythe Method's final stance before my fatigue meter ran out.
With that wish in mind, I headed to the next floor.
*
Floor 119.
Craaaaaaaaaaaang—!!!!!!
"…"
The Wrath of the Sun God activated mid-fight again.
Floor 120.
I kept my distance and continued the fight with caution.
The Wrath of the Sun God didn't go off, but I couldn't complete the combo sequence.
When I landed *Falling Moon* four times, the target died.
[Level Up! 123 Lv → 124 Lv]
[Stat Points +3 acquired!]
*
And then floor 121.
Screeeech—
The door opened, and the defender that appeared radiated a different quality of demonic energy than anything I'd faced before.
[Defender: Crimson Blade Dullahan (121F)]
A headless centaur.
Its upper body resembled the Blood Knight in appearance.
In one hand it held a massive war-blade longer than my entire body.
⟨……⟩
The Dullahan closed the distance in silence, gliding across the floor.
Shhhhhk—!
The war-blade came rushing toward me.
I stood still with my scythe raised.
Instant before impact.
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
Time stretched.
I immediately used Black Shift to move behind it.
Simultaneously, I let the raised scythe drop downward.
"*Falling Moon*."
Shhhk—!
This far was Macro 1. This far was free.
Crack
.
.
.
Clack—!
Time flowed back to normal.
Next, I wrenched the falling scythe hard and slashed horizontally.
"*Half Moon*."
I drove the Stance 2 horizontal slash through the air.
The Dullahan still hadn't detected me behind it.
Unwinding the twisted axis, I drove the scythe upward from low.
"*Rising Moon*."
Only after *Rising Moon* did it finally turn around.
It seemed startled—it swung the war-blade in a hurried arc.
A perfect opening.
What came next was defense.
"*Shrouded Moon*."
Claaang—!!!!!!!
I blocked the Dullahan's war-blade.
A perfect chain.
Now all four arcs flowed into one without a single break.
In that instant, the verse surfaced in my mind.
*— Beginning and end interlock to draw a perfect circle; that arc is none other than the full moon.*
From the completed circle formed by the scythe's accumulated arcs, I drove a diagonal slash outward.
Shk—
"*Full Moon*."
And then.
A circular slash was launched.
Shhhhhhhk—!
The Dullahan's body was pierced through in a perfect ring.
Thud!
And it crumbled.
[Floor-121 Crimson Blade Dullahan defeated]
[Promotion reward: 12,000G acquired!]
[Level Up! 124 Lv → 125 Lv]
[Stat Points +3 acquired!]
Tap.
I landed on the floor and slowly drew the scythe back.
"That just now… it felt like something like sword energy went out…"
Stance 5—*Full Moon*.
The afterglow of using that combo technique was considerable.
I absently raised my left hand, spread my fingers, then closed them again.
It felt like the vibration was still there.
"…Good. I've learned them all."
Exactly twenty floors.
I had succeeded in mastering all five stances.