Transcendent Species(1)

In front of Yu Seha,
The message window glowed red.

Each line warned of a danger incomparable to anything seen before.

‘……’

Of course, it was only one sentence.
Something, very…
There really was one very strange thing.

Suddenly appearing,
The words “embarrassment, shame.”

They were hardly words that should appear in such a serious situation.

All the more so if that was meant to be the price, a definite demerit.

But Yu Seha had neither the mental nor the temporal luxury to hesitate and question it.

‘I don’t care.’

For him, this moment was the most important turning point.

Anything was fine.

Give me whatever.

Whether lifespan, life, or talent,

Take anything.

So please…

‘My people…’

Give me a chance to protect my people!

Yu Seha did not hesitate.
He slammed the accept button in one breath.

The warped grotesquely into a form he’d never seen before.
It was as if the itself had become a demon and spread hell.
Breaking apart bit by bit,
It burrowed into Yu Seha’s body.

He didn’t fret much over what this was.
He tended not to.

A resolve to spare no means or methods.
Accordingly, the blood-red refreshed.

So vast in content,
Beyond the bounds of comprehension,
Abilities synthesized immediately.

Towering.

Yu Seha stood frozen like a stone.

“……Ah.”

He spread both hands.
Even without looking at the ,
He could feel it down to his bones.

The moment this power was etched into his body,
He knew it better than anyone.

“……Ah.”

That he was no longer human…
The bizarre sound that had been echoing since before grew so strong it could no longer be silenced.

There wasn’t any marked visual change.
But the deepest part of his body,
What’s commonly called the source, had been completely transformed.

Rustle.

“……?”

A momentary foreign sensation felt by his hand.
Something had been produced before he noticed.
Something that, upon reexamining, still had a bit of warmth.
Something summoned as if spat out by [Sla Sla].
Something extended as if declaring it was needed right now.

This was…

‘The divine beast Barbados’s tail hair?’

The words he had suddenly uttered
Flashed through his mind.

I hope I’m mistaken, but I thought this might be necessary.

‘I see…’

Did Barbados see this future back then?

“……”

Yu Seha stood up.
No one had told him, yet
He knew what to do.

Like a newborn beast learning to stand,
to walk,
and then run.

This ability,
He understood how to use.

Soon, his gaze fell upon
A torn and tattered leather armor.

It was the ‘Blue Scale Leather Armor (Rare)’ that Im Hye-ja had personally made using byproducts of the .

‘…Sorry, Hye-ja noona.’

He opened his mouth.

Then,

without hesitation…

Crack-!

He bit off a chunk of the armor.

Crunch, snap-!
Creak-!
Munch-!
Towering.

The Sword Ghost stopped at the sound.
He turned around.
He immediately witnessed a grotesque scene.

Even for him, who had faced countless strong foes over long years, it was a first.

‘…Is he eating it?’

Yu Seha, his disciple.

Suddenly he was shoving his armor into his mouth.

“……?”

What on earth was that grotesque act?
Though it had become ragged,
such a sturdy armor…
How in the world could one bite it and cram it into his stomach?

“……”

The Sword Ghost narrowed his eyes.
Looking again, there was no shortage of odd and uncanny things.
Each time Yu Seha opened his mouth, an absurd volume and mass vanished entirely.

‘…What?’

It wasn’t as if his mouth was torn,
Nor had its size increased.
Just the size of a normal person opening their mouth to eat.

Yet it disappeared in an instant.
Despite stuffing that much in, his abdomen did not bulge.

In a split second.
An unnameable judgment.
He felt that leaving it like this would be dangerous.

A pure instinct.
He, who had lived as an overwhelmingly strong figure for many years, felt a sense of crisis.

Therefore…
He grew all the more excited.

The Sword Ghost lifted the corner of his mouth.
The kid was trying to show something.
That alone was reason enough not to ignore him.

As expected.
Yu Seha’s grotesque behavior did not stop there.

Yu Seha produced a gray pouch from an extra-dimensional space.
It was a magic pouch containing ‘Kirin byproducts’ that Su Ok-bin had set aside for him.

Yu Seha glared at the watching Sword Ghost
As if to tear him apart,
And stuffed all the debris that came out into his mouth.

He swallowed with a gulp and his throat bobbed.
The final thing he shoved in was Barbados’s tail hair.
He swallowed even that.

“……”

Having finished his entire eating performance, Yu Seha rose from his seat.
He staggered as he began to approach.

The Sword Ghost frowned and asked.

“What is this, is that all?”
“……”
“Were you trying to stall for time with such pathetic nonsense?”
“……”

The Sword Ghost spoke with a clearly disappointed tone.

“Even if you did that, it won’t work. I will carve hatred and vengeance deep into you—”

At that moment,
For the first time in his life, the Sword Ghost could not finish his sentence.

Yu Seha vanished as if annihilated.
It was a phenomenon visible because of speed so overwhelming it surpassed cognition.

Immediately after, something of massive mass crashed into the Sword Ghost’s abdomen and face.

“……!”

A blow that rattled his bones.
The Sword Ghost was sent flying at a speed he could not control.

Bang-!

A forest plot far from the ,
He flew tens of kilometers in an instant and was slammed into a huge old tree.

Thud-!

The sword energy of the Ghost-Shadow Sword swept in a storm.
As if determined to allow no follow-ups,
Within the unfolding storm of blades.

The Sword Ghost got to his feet.

‘……’

A tremendous shock,
Internal injuries as if one or two ribs were broken,
The supreme agony he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Actually, he didn’t care much about such things.
What surprised the Sword Ghost was something else.

‘It was invisible.’

He didn’t know what it was, but
He only perceived that he’d been struck by a blow imbued with overwhelming speed and mass.

He hadn’t defended against it, nor dodged it,
Nor had he perceived and countered it,
Which was quite astonishing to the Sword Ghost.

He lifted his head.
Beyond the thickly spread dust,
The form of the monster that had chased him already stood there,
The let out a small “huh…”.

“……”

It was unmistakably Yu Seha.
Yes, it was indeed Yu Seha.
But only the upper body.

The Sword Ghost lowered his gaze.
What drew his attention was the completely different lower body from around the waist.

What one would commonly call a horse-like,
Quadrupedal creature’s lower body was attached.
No, to say it was merely attached would be an insult.

‘…Should I say it has grown?’

It was a level of completion far beyond something cobbled together like a chimera.

As if it had always been that way,
An overwhelming sense of balance emanated.

Clack.

Yu Seha steadied himself using four long legs.

A B-rank monster centaur-like half-human half-beast form.

‘…But that is absolutely not the body of a horse.’

Apart from also being a quadruped, it was a completely different creature.

Distinct white feathers,
covered atop by golden scales.
Dragon scales lighter and stronger than any metal.

At the same time, the muscle structure that only an innately overwhelming ‘Transcendent Species’ could possess.
The muscles connected up to the human-like upper body, forming distinctive patterns.

Finally, blue storm-clouds clung to the ankles with four reversed joints.
A power commonly called thunder-cloud power,
A remnant of divinity.

Various features
Told what kind of being that body belonged to.

“…Is that a Kirin’s lower body?”

No.

It wasn’t simply a ‘Kirin.’
Yu Seha’s upper body as well,
Was decidedly different from a moment ago.

Long hair fluttering.
It looked as if it had overgrown unnaturally, but it wasn’t that.

On closer inspection, blue scales rippled and moved like living organs.
Undoubtedly the form of a dragon.
It was the tail of a sea dragon.
A body structure that could rightly be called a ‘dragon tail.’

Additionally, draped over his shoulders was
A fierce, wild, and gracefully beautiful fur.
A brown fur mass that fluttered like wings and then reformed.

The Sword Ghost could not know,
that was a body part of the divine beast Barbados.
Each hair possessed an important and efficient ability to increase speed and reduce resistance.

Finally, in Yu Seha’s eyes, pupils of the same crimson color as Barbados’s were engraved.

It was proof that Barbados’s signature ability, , had begun to stir, albeit imperfectly.

“Hoo…”

Yu Seha exhaled a breath that was part human voice, part divine beast voice.
A breath mixing both.

‘King of Demons’, ‘Tyrant’.
The changes those two beings had wrought in him.

Screaming, shouting,
an answer to the demand ‘You must become strong immediately.’

No matter what price Yu Seha paid,
For now he could not beat the Sword Ghost purely with the ‘sword.’
This was something even the Yokai King, the Tyrant, and even [Eyes of Reverse Heaven] could not do.

Hence the chosen method.
To step outside the category of human,
And draw power fully by using body, special functions, and divinity.
A power attainable precisely because he transcended species.

Added to this was Yu Seha’s (understanding/intellect),
A genius whose talent could be said to reach the heavens.

But after all, the vessel to bear it was still clearly limited by being human.

By casting that aside, Yu Seha could fully draw forth power commensurate with his talent.

Not an exaggeration, merely breathing made him gradually stronger.

This, truly, was Yu Seha’s resolve and his answer.