Chapter 398: Limit
Ackster took the opportunity to breathe and let his body, mind, and sources recover in the few moments he had left before he the sphere caught up to him and started pushing against the tip of his sword. It didn’t do much to change Ackster’s strength or improve his chances of success. But it was well-needed.
Ackster had run on full gas—more than maximum output—for too long now. He had used his full strength against The Hero and the Voice. Then, without a chance to rest, he had to fight against a being so strong he couldn’t even see a path to victory.
But Ackster was too stubborn to give up so he met the sphere of cosmic power with a slash while imagining the sphere, the Observer, and the cosmic power as water. Thanks to his recent advances in his martial arts, Ackster’s attack made the entire sphere tremble. But that’s all it did.
There wasn’t even a sign of Ackster’s attack, except a slight indentation where he was using the full strength of his sword to try and hold back the sphere.
Limit Breaker rushed through Ackster’s body and sword. He didn’t waste any of Limit Breaker’s energy on useless things like recovery, his mind’s endurance, or Smelting Furnace.
All Ackster needed now was for his body and the sword to hold out. Everything else would be meaningless if he let the sphere crush him. So, even when the power of the sphere leaked and began erasing his skin, Ackster didn’t let Limit Breaker escaped into Stubborn Well-Being to heal him.
Ackster’s veins popped and exploded from the pressure. The skin on the palms of his hands tore. He grind his teeth until they cracked and turned to dust. His eyes were about to burst from the pressure of the sphere, but Ackster didn’t even blink as they started to melt and run out of his eye sockets.
Ackster’s skeleton creaked, and his joints creaked as his sword ground against the sphere.
The Observer watched him with derision.
Ackster ignored the Observer’s gaze and focused on his posture. As soon as he lost it or misaimed a fraction of his strength, the repressed strength from the indentation he had managed to create in the sphere would bounce back and smack against Ackster, turning him to dust.
The almost pink sphere, however, continued to grow, uncaring about Ackster’s desperate struggle. But it was an undeniable fact that Ackster held back at least a small area of the sphere while the rest expanded.
Since Ackster stood at the absolute edge of his Perfect World, which was now no more than ruins, it didn’t take long before the rest of the sphere started sizzling as it came in contact with the infernal flames of Smelting Furnace that secured the border.
However, even for all their heat, the strongest direct flame in Smelting Furnace came from a few slivers of Millmeria’s Core.
The Observer was strong enough to shatter Millmeria with his presence alone. The translucent sphere wasn’t a perfect demonstration of all his strength. But it was powerful enough to withstand the flames of a mortal world’s Core.
Fortunately, the only source of heat inside Smelting Furnace wasn’t just the Smelting Furnace’s own stolen fires. The Sun God Token resided inside Smelting Furnace, and it had formed a harmonious symbiosis with the Smelting Furnace where they strengthened each other’s fire and heat in a continuous cycle of growth.
The fire in the Smelting Furnace was hotter than they were when Ackster stole it from the world’s Core, thanks to the Sun God Token. That heat had nourished the Sun God Token and helped it achieve a similar level of heat. The Sun God Token then used that heat to fan the Smelting Furnace’s flames.
The Observer’s sphere of annihilation withstood the Smelting Furnace’s heat at first. But the already ongoing clash with the cosmic power Ackster had already bestowed on the Smelting Furnace was in full swing when the sphere joined the game. Smelting Furnace and the Sun God Token were unleashing all of their heat and flame to burn the cosmic energy. But they could sense the desperation from Ackster.
Smelting Furnace and the Sun God Token prioritized the sphere and started burning it.
The Observer sensed his sphere’s contact with the boundary and its subsequent erosion. But all he had to do was shower it with more cosmic power to reinforce it and continue pushing Ackster further into despair.
Ackster was acutely aware that the moment he was in right now was the moment that would decide his life or death. If he failed here, he would die. It wasn’t the first time that he was in such a situation. But this time, it wasn’t even a matter of surviving if he succeeded. If he succeeded, he had only delayed his death by a few moments—a minute or two if he was lucky.
Ackster dragged out reserves of energy from Limit Breaker that he didn’t even know existed. He Limit Broke Limit Breaker again and again.
Ackster accumulated so much stored damage by Breaking his Limits that he might die from that alone. But he would rather die from the backlash of his skills after defeating the Observer than die because he couldn’t defeat the fucker who made him.
However, there was apparently a limit to what Limit Breaker could do. Ackster reached his breaking point.
Fortunately, at least, it seemed that so had the Observer’s sphere.
Ackster pushed his sword through the sphere as it was too busy defending against the boundary’s fires.
Unfortunately, he used the last of his strength to do that.
Ackster could no longer maintain the Perfect World that was now nothing but empty space. The Perfect World and its boundary collapsed, and Ackster and the Observer returned to where they were before Ackster’s Perfect World unfolded.
Instantly, the Observer’s power began expanding the cracks in Millmeria, threatening the world’s destruction.
’It doesn’t make any fucking sense! Why?! Why is this all I can do?! Is this it? Is this my limit?’
Ackster was too tired to shout or complain. All he could do was think as he knelt and looked at the crumbling Millmeria. The fact that his thoughts were full of despair was proof enough of how tired he was. He could no longer force himself to believe he could do it.
<You continued to exceed my highest evaluations. But it seems like this is your limit. Finally. I haven’t exercised like this in years.>
’No!’
