The old man’s step had been passed down for generations.
Ghost Step.
This step, originally called Spearmanship Step, had carried a history of several hundred years.
When the old man was young.
He heard a story.
“Spearmanship Step began from the steps of the Spear God.”
A story of a god.
The young old man listened closely to his father’s words.
“Several hundred years ago, a Great Archdemon invaded the human world as a game, and many nations collapsed. Our Prime Kingdom, too, was reaching the end of despair. That was when one young man appeared.”
“He danced with a single spear in his hand. Around the Great Archdemon, thousands of monsters in its legion collapsed with a single step of his, and the light he struck down dealt damage to the Great Archdemon that could never be healed.”
The young old man loved that story.
“To everyone’s surprise, he was a god. But he was not a god from the beginning.”
“If he wasn’t a god from the beginning, then what was he?”
To the young old man’s question, the man who was his father said,
“A Demigod. They were born with the bodies of ordinary humans and rose to the realm of gods. We call those who were ordinary humans yet became gods Demigods. There are beings other than the Sword God, the Bow God, and the Spear God, and they symbolize martial power. They have left their traces in many places and are waiting for those who will succeed them.”
“Wow!”
That day, the young old man heard a story that left him unable to sleep.
“The movements the Spear God showed that day were the beginning of this Spearmanship Step. The first ancestor said this: ‘One who walks the steps of the Spear God will become a Demigod.’”
The young old man grew up with that dream.
However, the older he became, the more he understood.
It was something that had remained unfulfilled all the way down to his generation.
But the old man’s longing for Demigodhood was stronger than anyone else’s.
That longing made the old man Azure Heaven, the greatest spearman of his house.
Though Spearmanship Step existed, Prime Kingdom did not possess enough power to be called the nation of spears.
But his excellence made it a nation of spearmanship, and the “fundamentals of spearmanship” he wrote became the foundation for spearmen across the entire continent.
For the spearmanship created by one spearman to become the foundation that all spearmen used.
Perhaps the old man had already been walking the path of the Spear God.
The year he turned fifty.
The Unique Spearmanship Step, created only by roughly imitating the steps once walked by the Spear God, advanced one step further.
Its name was Ghost Step.
He had reached a realm no one in Prime’s royal family had ever attained.
And thirty years passed.
The old man chased the road the Spear God had walked, but it was not easy.
Yet he absolutely needed “that.”
Was it an achievement he would leave behind when his funeral was held?
At first, he had thought so.
But the more he walked, the more he understood.
When someone is leaving, they think of the one most precious to them until the final moment.
In the revolving lantern that comes at the moment of a human’s death, most of what appears is what they shared with the people they cherished most.
Originally, perhaps his revolving lantern would have contained only himself, who had “become a monster” chasing only the path of the Spear God.
But one person had appeared in the revolving lantern flashing past him.
I will complete it for you, Hyunsoo.
It was only for him.
*****
Ben’s body was in ruins.
He no longer had the strength to move even a finger, and his entire body refused to obey.
But although his flesh was collapsing, his mind was not.
Inside his head, the old man walked dozens of times, hundreds of times more.
But the darkness gradually closed in.
That darkness was the darkness called “death.”
Ben thought that perhaps he was finally becoming comfortable.
He, too, was tired now.
The old man felt himself becoming at peace in the darkness covering him.
However.
“You know His Highness Hyunsoo will grieve!!!”
A voice woke the old man.
It seems I cannot go yet.
The darkness that had swallowed his body withdrew.
The last glow before sunset.
It was the sky clearing for a brief moment just before the sun went down.
Within the vanished darkness, the old man holding the spear only regained the clarity of his mind when death had come right before him.
STEP—!
The old man’s foot, taking a single step, was light.
STEP—!
The old man’s second step was brisk.
Only then did he realize that his ancestors had been wrong.
All this time, they had only been chasing the movements the Spear God had shown that day.
At that moment, the old man began walking his own step.
If one chases someone else’s thing, one can only become someone who imitates that person.
If I walk it, then I myself enter that path.
Before the old man taking his third step, hundreds of lines appeared.
Those lines were like long connected threads.
Those lines were the new steps of the Spear God.
At last, the old man had learned his own step.
*****
The old man’s death came at night.
In the deep darkness, the old man’s blood darkly soaked the ground.
The cries of grass insects, which were heard especially well only at night, reached the ears, and at times, the small sounds of beasts or monsters could be heard as well.
But the moment the old man everyone had believed dead raised his spear.
The cries of the grass insects that had been ringing in the silence stopped, and even the small sounds of the beasts stopped.
Everyone there stiffened and stared at the old man’s spear as it slowly rose toward the sky.
The name “Hyun” was written on the old man’s spear.
And beneath it, from when the old man had come to visit and fallen asleep.
There were also words a blacksmith had written for him.
—To my grandfather......
Sword Emperor Bolond, taking in those words, felt the illusion that the flow of the air had stopped.
The assassins, without realizing it themselves, slowly looked at the light rising only from the old man.
It was dawn.
One small light rising from the old man wrapped around the whole darkness.
“......I can finally see it.”
The old man’s words made everyone’s breath stop.
Along with the light that settled in his hollow, dying eyes.
“Ghost Spearmanship Final Chapter.”
The dawn of the final glow before death rose.
“Divine Step.”
BOOOOOOM—
Originally, Ghost Step was a power that allowed him to take about forty-three steps per second.
However.
“......I can see it.”
The old man’s form flashed its eyes like a beast.
He walked along exactly 1,231 lines.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!
The assassins, unable even to realize what had happened, became ash and burned away.
The only thing that showed where the old man was came from the dawn-like light that rose wherever he passed.
FLASH-FLASH-FLASH—!
With each strike of the old man walking through the darkness in a faint glow, one assassin scattered.
And as everyone there watched the afterimage, they were captivated.
The old man seemed to be dancing.
He became one with the spear he had held since birth and displayed the realm of Oneness of Self and Object.
In the fleeting moment before death, someone saw the old man and was captivated.
Beautiful.......
That dance was beautiful, and fireworks of blood burst upward.
More than six hundred assassins died in an instant.
“......”
Only 0.8 seconds had passed since this began.
BOOOOOOM—!
Absolute Shield Peya hurriedly tried to activate his specialty, Unshakable Wall, but—
SCH-SCH-SCH-SCH-SCH-SCHUNK—
Spear holes opened all over Absolute Shield Peya’s body, and he coughed up blood.
“Cough!”
Only then did Sword Emperor Bolond come to his senses, and the moment he hurriedly drew his sword, he heard it.
[A World Message rings out.]
[One ordinary human begins walking the path of a Demigod.]
[He is walking his own step, which no one has ever achieved, and crafting the tale of a Demigod.]
[His name is Azure Heaven Ben.]
“......!!”
Sword Emperor Bolond grew urgent.
If he could not stop the old man now, even he and Peya would die.
“Sword Emperor’s Swordsmanship. Chapter 1.”
But Absolute Shield Peya and Wang Hao, master of the Black Lion Corps, knew about that power.
Wang Hao’s eyes, in particular, rolled back.
“N-No!”
The essence of Sword Emperor’s Swordsmanship Chapter 1 did not distinguish between ally and enemy.
The moment that power was unleashed, there was a high chance the members of the Black Lion Corps would be annihilated as well.
But the Sword Emperor was a coward who valued himself more than the lives of his subordinates.
“Red Great Army.”
GRRRRRRRR—!
Hundreds of streams of red sword energy erupted from Sword Emperor Bolond’s sword and spread out in hundreds of lines like a fierce wave.
Before that power stretching toward the old man could reach him.
The members of the Black Lion Corps it grazed scattered into a handful of ash.
It was a power that swallowed roughly four hundred Black Lion assassins.
However.
The old man was now walking the path of a Demigod.
Through the old man walking along the lines with Divine Step.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—!
In only one second, every strand of sword energy vanished into the air.
At the same time, Wang Hao, who had been blocking the path, was also struck directly by the old man’s attack.
BOOOOM—!
As Wang Hao was annihilated by a single blow, Sword Emperor Bolond took one step back.
“The final line.”
A chilling voice rang out.
BOOOOOOM—!
The old man’s form shot forward like light once more, and Sword Emperor Bolond could neither avoid nor block it.
SLAAAAASH—!
[You have taken 3,301,301 damage!]
A damage number appeared that users would have called absurd if they had seen it.
Even more shocking was the fact that Bolond’s left arm fell to the ground.
[You have lost your left arm.]
[Because the balance of your arms no longer matches, it will not be easy to regain your sense of control.]
[Bleeding occurs!]
[The bleeding will not stop!]
[Status ailment: Extreme Terror activates.]
[Status ailment: Extreme Shock activates.]
[Status ailment......]
[Status ailment......]
At that moment.
“Unbreakable Shield!”
Peya cried out urgently.
It was a power that unconditionally protected the target for two minutes and suppressed bleeding.
The light of an absolute shield wrapped around Sword Emperor Bolond.
The old man holding the spear stopped, and Sword Emperor Bolond, having lost ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) one arm, was stepping back in fear.
Peya looked around.
This is impossible. How can a mere human......? No, how can he ascend to the realm of a god?
Absolute Shield Peya was a man who knew Azure Heaven by face, even if they were not close.
Among the Continental Top Ten Legends of the Asgan Continent, he had not been especially remarkable or eccentric.
What he had shown was no different from divine might handed down on the continent.
“GRAAAAAAAH!”
Sword Emperor Bolond screamed as he clutched his lost arm.
But Peya now understood that they could do nothing to the nation of Hyun.
The old man standing before White Tiger did not retreat by even an inch.
And.
How could the likes of us possibly defeat an old man who has ascended to godhood?
The Black Lion, two thousand Black Lion Corps assassins, Sword Emperor Bolond’s left arm, and even Wang Hao.
“I’ll kill you!”
Peya rushed toward Sword Emperor Bolond, whose mind was collapsing.
Absolute Shield Peya embraced him and hurriedly tore a Return Parchment.
As Peya vanished into light, he understood.
This is our complete defeat.
But Peya had no anger toward the old man, nor any thought of killing him.
He simply.
As someone who had been a fellow Legend, acknowledged him.
That he had been the only person who could ascend to godhood.......
After they disappeared.
“You were amazing, Elder. Now we can go back together. You can meet His Highness Hyunsoo again, and you can see the White Tiger who will be born!”
Pans’s Wife was overwhelmed.
NPCs heard World Messages as well.
It reached them in a different way, but at the very least, she knew that the old man standing before her had become the Spear God who would lead an era.
However, the old man’s complexion was terribly pale.
The pupils of Pans’s Wife trembled as she looked at him.
Starting from the tips of the old man’s feet, he was slowly disappearing.
“......It seems I cannot keep my promise.”
Pans’s Wife fell into shock.
In truth, the real truth had been hidden in the notification.
It had said that the old man was beginning to walk the path, not that he had become a god.
Because he had not become a god, he could not escape death.
Tears flowed endlessly from Pans’s Wife’s eyes.
But she forced herself to stay composed.
“There may still be a way. This carriage was on its way to meet the Saintess!”
Thanks to the old man, no one in the carriage had died.
The carriage only needed to head toward its destination.
The old man climbed onto the carriage.
Inside the swaying carriage.
The old man said to Pans’s Wife,
“Please bring me a pen and paper.”
She hurriedly received a pen and paper and handed them to him.
One by one, the old man drew several sheets of figures that looked as though they were walking.
It was the method of using Divine Step, to be delivered to Hyunsoo.
[A Myth for a Dear Friend reacts.]
The old man had heard all too much about tales, but this was his first time hearing of a Myth.
However, the old man had no time to concern himself with that.
He simply drew with all his strength, and the message was merely heard.
[Even in his final moments, the old man writes for him.]
