The Regressed NoBody

I jumped onto a half broken branch of an enormous tree, as I took the surrounding in. Observing the monsters nearby.

There were many giant Armadillos, Goblins, Clawed Centipedes, and all other kind of monsters spread in the entirety of this place.

I drew in a quick breath and withdrew Bleak Star out of the scabbard. But upon closer inspection, I saw that the blade had gotten a little nicked from the edges, and it had also gotten a little bit blunt. The blade was no longer as good as it used to be, but still usable.

‘Well, I do have abused this sword in my previous battles, so that’s to be expected.’

But as my level was increasing, and I was reaching closer to my previous strength, I knew I had to change my main weapon. In this moment I really wanted to sigh.

‘I really wish I had Twilights Reaper with me right now! Damn it, couldn’t that mysterious power which allowed me to regress back, had allowed my sword to regress with me!’

I grumbled, firmly holding the sword in my hand. It was the best sword which I had come to wield in my past life. Matter of fact, Twilights Reaper followed me in almost all of my battles, after the sword was forged.

But unfortunately, after dying and coming back in time, I had lost my trustee partner. And the material I had found to create Twilights Reaper was very rare to find, it was almost a coincidence that I got my hands over material good enough, for the creation of my sword. So finding the material which could make a sword as strong and balanced as Twilights Reaper, which could handle the full throttle of my strength was close to impossible.

Before Twilights Reaper was forged, every sword which I used would crumble in my hands, because when I used the Crescent Moon Style or utilised the sword its blade would become either blunt of it would just snap. So finding a good sword was hard, which could fill all the criteria; such as in balance department and weight.

With another sigh, I placed my foot forward, then jumped down from the branch. I channelled the mana inside my body and reinforced my feet, as I landed on top of a giant Armadillo’s back.

They were almost twenty meters in length and five meters in height, and their massive body's prevented them from being attacks.

The monster’s entire body was covered with scales or either protected by its shell. But their weakness was their knees. If immobilised, these monsters become sitting ducks.

With a quick push, I shot to it left side, as I perfectly hid my presence. The giant Armadillo hadn’t noticed me either. I took this moment and hacked at it knee. My sword cut through its thick meaty knee, as its green blood sprayed all over the ground.

With a deafening grunt, the monster lost its footing and stumbled to the ground. I took this moment and thrust my sword into both its eyes, blinding the monster at the spot.

With another scream of agony, I coated my sword with mana and thrust it into the monster’s forehead, killing it.

[You Have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

Two windows popped up in front of me, indicating that I had levelled up the moment that I had killed the giant Armadillo.

“Alright, let’s keep going at this pace!”

I voiced, making my way deeper into the forest.

But a few hundred meters away, I found a group of Salamanders. There were three of the reptile monsters.

Their bright crimson skin basked in the sunlight, as their dull black eyes looked haunting. The monsters mouth was covered with dagger like teeth, same with their claws. The sunlight was reflected through their sharp teeth and claws.

They had long fin like scales around their neck, and a long tail with a big blob riddled with sharp spikes.

Salamanders were ranked monster for their general ferocity, but were pretty peaceful monsters unless provoked. They were dangerous because they could breath fire and envelop their entire body with fire, to not allow their attacker to reach or deal damage to them.

With the exception of long range attacks.

I pointed my left hand in the general direction of one of the three salamanders. With a push, the glove erupted in a thin bright greenish light, and soon an arrow began to take form above the glove. But not stopping there, I let the artifact form another arrow beside the one formed, filling the arrows with mana to the max. Both of them hovered above the glove as their glow increased. I released them both and shot them at a Salamander.

The air ruffled and the tree leaves and branches around me slightly shook, as the arrows released and shot in the Salamander’s direction.

With a painful moan filled with agony, both of the arrows dug deep into the neck of the Reptile. But in that moment, I withdrew Bleak Star, and lunged in their direction.

I hacked my sword at the Salamander to my left and with a twirl, my sword cleaning decapitated its head.

[You Have Levelled Up]

But the unharmed companion, pulled in a deep breath and released a scorching breath of fire, which burned the grass land behind us and engulfing some of the trees around us.

I summersault backward, barely dodging the Salamander’s fire breath. The unharmed Salamander had now covered itself with flames which it had released.

The Salamander—the one I had injured with my arrows—writhed in pain, as it weakly ran in my direction. I firmed my grip, and with a slight twsit I finished it with a horizontal slash.

The Reptile’s lifeless body fell over the grassland lit ablaze, as its blood dyed the ground.

But not stopping there, I dashed in the last remaining Salamander’s direction, and just as I reached close enough to it, it breathed fire again, and my coat almost caught its flame. But I thrust my sword and dug it deep into the Reptile’s eyes. Then taking my sword by both hands, I slashed vertically upwards.

The Reptile screamed, as it lifelessly laid on the ground after a moment.

[You Have Levelled Up]

‘Only two level ups,’ I said looking at the body’s of the Salamanders.

But I felt a warm sensation coming from behind me. I looked above my shoulder and behind, and my coat had caught on flames from the back. I hurriedly took it off and began to brush the lingering flames out.

But the coat hadn't been burned that much. “Thank god, its high quality.”

I wore my coat back on and then went deeper into the dungeon.

***

“This is the place that the system had mentioned where the Boss Monster supposedly is,” I said observing the cave, whose mouth I stood outside of.

A cold breeze coming from inside the dark cave swayed my clothes as I looked at my now increased stats over the system interface.

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NAME: SEO JIWOO (???)

HP: 19977

LEVEL: 52

STRENGTH: 108

STAMINA: 115

AGILITY: 102

VITALITY: 106

INTELLIGENCE: 72

MP: 8945

POINTS: 759

_____________

FATIGUE: 6

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【PASSIVE SKILLS】

PERSEVERANCE LV.3

PROFESSION: [Swordsmanship] [LV: 3]

[Crescent Moon Style]

[Regeneration] [LV: 1]

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【SKILLS】

[{E} Acausality] (Sealed)

This skill allows the user to tamper with the flow of time. Allowing the user to stop time for a brief moment.

Note: An equivalent amount of the host’s Mana will be drained as long as the skill is active.

〔Cool down〕: 2 weeks

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【Returnee’s Privilege】 [Time: ??? ] [Synchronisation 25%]

–[MIND’S EYE] (Sealed) (Unlocked: 60% )

Allowing the host to slow down the flow of time from their perspective. The host can also see the energy signature produced by any living being and object, and the ambient structures of mana and its pure forms...???

–[LEAP] (Sealed)

This skill allows the user to teleport to a specific location after empowering an image in their mind. The wormholes (pathways) spiralling in the atmosphere, connecting to a specified location by the pulse of mana, making a gate like connection for the host to teleport through.

Each wormhole contains information about a different location.

〔Cool Down〕: 3 hours

–????

–????

–????

______________

【????】

–????

______________

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It had taken me approximately two hours to find this place. But along the way, I had fought any monster I could find. And some of them were even close to the rank.

“Oh right,” I said looking at the Intelligence stat. “Assign twenty points to the intelligence stat.”

Just as I said, the interface glowed and after the glow resided, I saw the stat points of the intelligence stat increased.

----

INTELLIGENCE: [72] ---> [92]

----

The intelligence stat never raised not even one point, as much as I levelled up, and I could only increase it with the points I received after killing monsters or completing a quest.

But why was this stat alone not raising? It had bugged me since the start, but I could never form a clear answer. It seems like the system is really playing with me.

All of those question marks, and that stat bullshit.

But with a sigh, I waved the interface from in front of me, as I decided to step inside the wide entrance of the dark cave.

The ground inside the cave was wet, as darkness was the only thing which met the eye. As I walked through the cave, the light from the outside which was barely illuminating the inside, dimed little by little.

But after walking for a minute, I saw a ray of light coming from inside of the cave. Upon closer inspection, I saw that there were roots spiralling across the walls of the cave, which shined with a brilliant greenish light.

But there was some liquidity goo drooping from the wall which soiled the ground as well.

Walking through the muddy cave, I looked around trying to find where the boss monster could be. Because the location where the cure could be acquired was really close to this place, so on that thought I decided to clear the quest first. In total, I still had six hours felt, until I needed to return to the Inn.

But I twirled, sequentially twisted my torso, as I thrust my sword backwards, as it dug into something hard. I turned to look, and saw a clawed centipede was now laying on the ground behind me, dead.

I pulled my sword out and cleared the blood of its blade. But I heard sudden movement emerging from the direction I had entered the cave from.

I held my sword, as I made my way deeper into the cave. Mud splashed all over my shoes, soiling them, as the monsters movements began to draw closer to me. There were at least a hundred or maybe close to two hundred clawed centipedes making their way in my direction. If I was right!

‘An entire horde, huh?’

But I came to sudden halt, as I saw there were four passageways in front of me. Without giving it much thought, I quickly took the tunnel to the furthest right and sped up my pace.

‘I need to find a better place to fight the monsters where I can freely move,’ I inwardly said, as I kept observing my surroundings, for any surprise attacks like before.

The tunnel grew smaller and distant as I moved through it. I could fight the horde, but if cornered, I would be dead-meat.

Because, if there were that many monster in this cave, then there can be even more.

But as I reached near the end of the tunnel, I felt an ominous feeling emerging from within me. I firmed my grip over Bleak Star, and walked out of the tunnel.

But what met me, made my eyes to open wildly in horror. The tunnel had opened up to an enormous cavern. But the thing which made me nervous was, the ground which was at least twenty meters below, was littered with Clawed Centipedes.

But there was a huge gaping pit, which hundreds of those monster were circling around, rather it looked like they were guarding it.

This was out of question! There were hundreds of Clawed centipedes here.

The Clawed Centipedes looked exactly like normal centipedes, but having a much larger size, but the thing which made me wary of them was that they could release a paralysing poison through the claws which were near their mouth.

Clawed Centipedes were considered ranked monsters. No, their rank went even below, but, they were given the rank because they always attacked in hordes. Which made it difficult to deal with them, on top of looking out for the paralysing poison they released.

‘Damn it, I just had to take this tunnel!’ I wanted to curse at my shit choice but I think I have to make due with this.

The monsters which were following me from behind were inching closer each second.

‘Well, as they say, the more the risk, the better the pay of,’ I inwardly voiced, taking a step forward and jumping from the small platform I stood on, into the nest of monsters.

I began to hack away at every monster which came in my vision. I corrected my breathing and began to use as much motion possible, while maintaining the same power and strength in each swing.

Twirling, I took a centipede by the antennas over its head and summersault whilst slash its back.

Its disgusting blood sprayed over me, as I began to attack again.

[You have Levelled Up]

[You have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

Windows popped up in front of me indicating that I had levelled up, as I reaped through the hordes of these monsters. Not giving much mind to the windows which constantly appeared in front of me. Focusing entirely on the battle with these monsters.

Even a moment of recklessness could cost me dearly.

But much to my avail, my breathing hardened, I was running out of stamina. I had already killed almost more than a hundred or close to two hundred of these things.

But they just kept on coming. I used the artifact which I had brought, whilst slashing two centipedes close to me.

I drew a breath, as I kept killing the monsters.

[You Have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

[You Have Levelled Up]

The same system messages repeated as I hacked through the horde of monsters. Sidestepping, I caught the centipedes, lunging at me from all directions. Their blood sprayed the ground all around us, dying me in their blood.

‘Should I use my skill?’ I thought in the back of my head, but shrugged the thought off.

I had to be able to do this much in order to grow stronger. I pulled two stamina recovery potions out of the inventory and quickly chugged them down.

But faster than my stamina could recover, it was depleting, and I was slowly reaching my limit, there was no end to these things. If I killed two, four more appeared taking their place. There was no end to them.

‘Fuck,’ I cursed, punching a centipede close by, by my fist reinforced with mana. My fist smashed through the centipede’s hard skin, and drove into its insides which I pulled out, killing it, whilst barely avoiding their poisonous claws.

A centipede grazed me on my shoulder, but a moment later, the wound began to heal.

Damn it!

Lea—!

But just as I was about to activate my skill, I heard a deafening explosion reverberate inside this cavern, which made the walls to tremble violently.

“Hey, up here,” I heard a voice coming from my left.

Another explosion reverberated, as I kicked another horrendous monster with my foot and looked above at the wall to my left.

There was a youth standing there, to be exact inside the small opening which opened up in the wall. Through which a single person could barely crawl through.

I nodded at the youth in hurry, as I made my way closer to the wall to my left.

He threw a thick rope down, and I grabbed hold of it. I withdrew Bleak Star back into the inventory, and kicked the centipedes around me.

Quickly, I began to climb the rope, the centipedes began to follow me, but the walls in here had the same liquidity goo drooping from the, making the wall slippery, not allowing the monsters to climb up to follow me.

Soon I reached the small opening in the wall and crawled through it, and falling into a wide cavern, which was led to by the small opening in the wall.

I fell to all four as I gasped hard for air.

“T-Thanks,” I said, turning to looking at the strange in question who had saved me.

“Don’t worry about it,” the stranger said.

I leaned against the wall behind me, as I deeply inhaled and exhaled. I placed my hand over my shoulder which had began to burn for some reason. But a moment later it resided.

Then I focused on the youth’s appearance and saw he had pale green hair which were cut short, with a deep charisma in his beautiful scarlet eyes. He was wearing a pair of tight pants, with a brown shirt which perfectly outlined his physique. His facial features were also sharp. But my eyes drifted on to the necklace he was wearing around his neck.

It was a ruby attached to a black chain. I became alert.

“Thanks for helping me out,” I said, almost wary of him, taking a water canteen out from the inventory and drinking from it.

The stranger moved an inch closer to me and replied.

“Don’t worry about it!”

But I activated Mind’s Eye in that moment, and observed his mana signature which burned in his body. I carefully observed his mana, finding any trace of demonic energy in it. The cavern lit up, as the shining particles of mana appeared bare to my eyes.

But the thing which I was suspicious about had been wrong.

This person was not a demon’s contractee. His mana didn’t have one speck of demonic energy intermingled within it. I learned from my past experiences to not trust anyone, entirely. Even if they meant good will, it was always a good thing to put up your guard in situations like these.

And I couldn’t become comfortable with this guy until I could judge this rank and abilities. What if he had some ulterior motive for saving me?

If by chance things did went south.

I pulled a stamina recovery potion out and chugged it down. I could already feel my stamina recovering.

The youth then began to walk deeper into the cavern as he gestured for me to follow suit. I got up to my feet and followed him from behind. The small cavern opened up to an open space.

It was filled with vegetation, lavish plants and huge trees growing everywhere. There was a big pond a few meters away from us, as I looked around. This place looked beautiful, unlike the cavern where that horde of monsters were.

“How did you end up in the worst tunnel which led to the nest of the centipedes?” The stranger asked, sitting down on the edge of the steep cliff leading down to the greenery.

“Well, blame my crappy luck for this, not me,” I said with a tinge of humour.

The stranger chuckled hearing me. He turned his head toward me and opened his mouth to speak.

“My name is Neil! What about you?” The stranger Neil introduced, sequentially asking.

I also sat down on the edge of the steep cliff, but maintaining some distance from him, as I replied to him. “Shun!”