The Martial God who Regressed Back to Level 2

"Hmm... According to you, I'm already dead, and"

Tap tap.

Dongbang Sak, who had been listening to Seong Jihan's story, patted his own body with his palm.

"This body is ultimately nothing more than data in this tower."

"That's how it started. Until just now, you seemed like an NPC."

"But... You say I came to my senses when the light of the Taiji Sword was extinguished?"

"Yes. Don't you remember this?"

"No. What I remember is... Yes. It ended when I died after leaving the sword to you."

At those words, Seong Jihan recalled Dongbang Sak disappearing after leaving the Taiji Sword in the sea.

How could he now have memories of that time?

'And the memories came back when the Taiji Sword burned in the blue flame...'

The white message window that appeared when the Taiji Sword burned clearly said that a 'data seal' had been partially released due to an error.

'Then does this mean the Taiji Sword was actually a sword that sealed data?'

Unlike Seong Jihan's, the Taiji Sword that had been shining with intense light.

In the past, not knowing about the existence of white light, he had just thought the color was different because Dongbang Sak's understanding of the Taiji Sword was different from his own.

But the message that appeared now was fundamentally shaking that thought.

As Seong Jihan was lost in these questions,

Swish.

Dongbang Sak slowly stroked his beard.

"Hmm... But, there are strange memories mixed in."

"What do you mean by strange memories?"

"I have memories of reigning as humanity's ruler and the Murim Empire's emperor. The memories aren't all clear, they're patchy, but..."

"...The Qi Empire?"

"Yes. It's quite amusing, isn't it? Me, an emperor."

What was with this sudden Murim Empire?

As Seong Jihan was dumbfounded,

[Blue Administrator. Tell him about the message you saw earlier.]

The Red Administrator advised Seong Jihan in a serious voice.

'The message...'

-Due to an error, the data seal is partially released.

Was this what he meant?

'Well, I suppose it's okay to tell Dongbang Sak.'

Seong Jihan told Dongbang Sak about the message he had seen.

"A data seal? The Taiji Sword?"

Dongbang Sak responded with a strange expression, then.

Swish swish swish.

He floated a Taiji behind his back and pulled out only the Taiji Sword from within it.

The sword flashing with pure white light.

There, a faint power of white light could be felt.

"Hmm... Until now, I thought I couldn't progress further because my understanding was lacking..."

"What do you mean by that?"

"In fact, the Taiji Sword is a means to reach Infinite."

"Infinite?"

"It refers to the initial state of Taiji. If I reach Infinite, my martial arts will be complete. I've been aiming for this through the Taiji Sword until now." Р𝐚ɴՕᛒÈS

Swish.

As he said this, Dongbang Sak stroked his beard.

"But, there had been no progress for a long time, so I thought it was just my lack of talent..."

"...Lack of talent, you say?"

As Seong Jihan looked at Dongbang Sak incredulously,

He slightly raised the corner of his mouth.

"Haha. Don't look at me like that. I know I have innate martial talent. I just thought it might not be enough to reach Infinite."

"At least you have some self-awareness."

"Anyway, to think that this Taiji Sword actually had data sealed within it... It's truly fascinating."

Dongbang Sak held out the Taiji Sword to Seong Jihan as he said this.

"Well then, shall we try burning the sword more, like before?"

"I'm fine with it, but didn't you say strange memories were mixed in? If your memories get confused..."

"If it becomes more than I can handle, I'll ask you to stop. So don't worry and do it like before."

"Hmm..."

"And in fact, the memory of reigning as the emperor of the Murim Empire doesn't feel entirely foreign to me."

Seong Jihan blinked at those words.

The emperor of the Murim Empire.

He thought some strange memories had mixed in from the Taiji Sword's seal, but was it actually related to Dongbang Sak?

'I guess I'll have to verify it.'

Whoosh!

Blue flames ignited from Seong Jihan's Blue and Red.

The blue flames quickly spread to the Taiji Sword.

Sizzle...

The blue flames gradually ate away the light of the Taiji Sword.

And from there, the same message as before appeared again.

[Due to an error, the data seal is partially released.]

However.

[Unidentified errors continue to occur.]

[If errors continue to progress, all current data will be deleted and replaced with backup data.]

Unlike before, the white message window now displayed a message saying it would delete all current data.

'Hmm... I guess it's better to stop for now.'

Just then.

"Hmm... How could this be..."

Dongbang Sak also seemed to have gained more memories from this process, as he couldn't hide his surprised reaction.

This much should be enough, there was no need to risk data deletion.

Swish...

As the blue flames from Blue and Red subsided,

The white light flickered again from the Taiji Sword whose light had dimmed.

And.

With his eyes closed, Dongbang Sak, who had been stroking his beard for a while,

After several dozen minutes, slowly opened his mouth.

"...You. What was humanity's current race number again?"

"It's 4212."

"Hmm. I see. 4212..."

Dongbang Sak mulled over the number 4212 several times, then.

"In these memories, I was the ruler of number 2101."

He began to say something unexpected.

* * *

"Number 2101... you say?"

"Yes. At first, I thought it was someone else's story."

Dongbang Sak looked at his Taiji Sword.

"As more of the seal was released just now, it became clear. I am indeed the ruler of 2101."

"2101..."

"Instead of just talking about it, I should show you. Seeing is believing."

As he said this, he closed his eyes for a moment.

Flash!

A screen appeared before Seong Jihan's eyes.

"This... doesn't seem to be a system screen."

"Hm? To manifest one's mental image, why would there be a need to go through the BattleNet system? You should be able to do this much too."

Well... could he really?

As Seong Jihan was thinking this while looking at the screen Dongbang Sak had created, Dongbang Sak appeared on the screen.

"Unlike the current era, in a time when there was no Martial God... Yes, no 'Snake'. I helped King Wen and King Wu of Zhou pacify the world."

Swish...

On the screen, Dongbang Sak, with a face no different from now,

Appeared lightly swinging his sword.

But unlike that light motion, the resulting effect turned the world upside down.

With one sword strike, all monsters were swept away, enemy armies were cut in half, and the world was pacified all too easily.

"And I was granted Qi by my lord and became a king. But I was more interested in perfecting my martial arts than ruling. So I entered closed-door training."

Zing...

As the screen changed, inside it,

The figure of Dongbang Sak appeared, immersed in training in a dark, secluded room.

"How long did you train?"

"It must have been over 2,000 years."

"...How did you stay alive? There was no Martial God to grant immortality back then."

"Somehow, I wanted to reach Infinite. So I guess I didn't want to die."

No.

Just because you don't want to die, can you not die for 2,000 years?

As Seong Jihan was about to let out a wry laugh at those words,

"But there was a limit to training alone... I decided to come out."

As Dongbang Sak finished speaking, the screen changed again.

There, countless cavalry troops appeared.

"When I came back to the world, Mongol armies were sweeping through the Central Plains."

"So you came out during the Mongol invasion period."

"Yes. At one point, I thought about taking them as disciples... but their methods were too cruel, so I eliminated them all."

Swish...

As Dongbang Sak, standing in front of the cavalry, raised a Taiji,

The Mongol cavalry were all sucked into it at once.

'No... that's like a constellation coming to a Bronze-level game...'

Even after this, the scenes Dongbang Sak showed were, completely one-sided.

Not only were the Mongol troops swept away in an instant, but also the martial artists from the Central Plains, his homeland, Western knights, and Indian armies, all of them.

With one swing of his sword, everything was destroyed.

Like that,

"I pacified the world in just 20 years after ending my closed-door training."

"...In 20 years?"

"Yes. It took a long time because transportation wasn't developed back then."

The ruler, who unified the entire world like this and established the Murim Empire Qi.

In the past, he had abandoned his throne to go train, but there was a separate reason for carrying out such a grand endeavor this time.

"To further develop my martial arts, I needed opponents worthy of facing me. But naturally, there was no way such martial artists would appear, right?"

"That's true."

"So I decided to create an empire and personally nurture promising martial artists."

He would create them if there were no opponents to match his martial arts.

With this determination, the ruler in his memories, inified the world and eagerly accepted promising disciples into the imperial city of Qi, built in Shandong Province.

However,

"Even after teaching for hundreds of years, there was no one who could match me..."

"If you trained for over 2,000 years, you must have accumulated a lot of internal energy. Who could win against that?"

"Why use internal energy when you can draw from nature itself? When you reach the realm of nature, age becomes irrelevant."

"...So, were there any disciples who reached this realm of nature?"

"No. Perhaps my teaching was inadequate, but no disciple reached that level..."

As Dongbang Sak stroked his beard, expressing regret, he changed the screen again.

Swish...

There, a huge stone tablet appeared, densely covered with Chinese characters.

A familiar tablet to Seong Jihan's eyes.

Only the writing on the stone had changed from English to Chinese characters.

This was...

"Is this perhaps the invitation to BattleNet?"

"Yes. It was a lifeline sent from heaven to me, who was craving for opponents. And then."

Zing...

The status window message appearing to all of humanity.

There, humanity's number was clearly shown as NO.2101.

'Definitely different from the current 4212...'

So this was what Dongbang Sak meant earlier, when he said he was the ruler of 2101.

"We, who were assigned number 2101, had our fair share of success."

"Success, you say? As humanity?"

Seong Jihan, who had only struggled as part of humanity, asked in surprise.

Dongbang Sak smiled and stroked his beard.

"Haha. Well, you had no preparation at all... But I had been nurturing disciples to create my own opponents. Our starting conditions were completely different."

"So how far did you go?"

"We reached the Platinum League. We couldn't go higher, but we settled there."

"Wow... That's unbelievable..."

Reaching the Platinum League as humanity?

And even settling there?

At this moment, Seong Jihan was more impressed by this fact than by Dongbang Sak's martial prowess.

"I was quite satisfied during this time. Even though beings from other worlds couldn't match me, the administrators at the pinnacle of BattleNet were goals I had to overcome. Especially the Black Administrator, I thought he had already reached Infinite."

"The Black Administrator..."

"Yes. This was the time when my martial spirit was most intensely stimulated..."

Perhaps reminiscing about that time, Dongbang Sak had a smile on his face.

Certainly, this time of fierce struggle in BattleNet must have been happier for him than the previous era when he was bored without opponents.

If humanity could settle in the Platinum League, there would be no worry about extinction.

The race would have evolved through BattleNet rewards, so public sentiment must have been at its peak.

This could be considered the best possible outcome after being invited to BattleNet.

"Just hearing about it, it sounds like a happy period."

"Yes..."

Dongbang Sak nodded at Seong Jihan's words, then.

Snap.

Suddenly, he broke off a strand of his beard.

"...It was like that until a strange woman suddenly popped up from the World Tree Alliance."

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