Chapter 563
The wounded Bottomless Abyss wielded its Authority. Black paint charged forward, devouring everything in its path.
Taesan didn’t retreat.
He wrapped himself in Boundary and charged in alongside the Beast of Boundary. The Beast of Boundary swelled its body, becoming a massive wave that trampled and suppressed the black paint.
Taesan swung his sword and detonated Boundary. KWA-AAAANG!
Boundary and black paint burst against each other. The Bottomless Abyss shuddered. A chunk split off from the heavy mass of flesh that made up its body.
And the separated flesh exploded. Like a claymore, it swept forward.
“Block it.”
The Beast of Boundary changed shape, becoming a colossal curtain. It collided head-on with the chunks of flesh.
KUGUGUGUGUNG!
The shockwave shook everything. Even against the chunks of flesh, the Beast of Boundary didn’t give ground.
Boundary now had material form as a living being.
That meant the Authority of Physical Force and Boundary could mix in a true sense. It had been possible before, but it hadn’t been perfect fusion.
KUGUGUGUNG……
The collision subsided. It had blocked the attack, but the impact on the Beast of Boundary was heavy as well. It was pierced and torn, tattered and mangled.
But it cycles.
The damaged, twisted sections slowly restored. Taesan didn’t intervene at all. It was like a beast licking its own wounds to heal.
Having restored itself in an instant, the beast charged the Bottomless Abyss once more.
Taesan followed. Using the path the Beast of Boundary carved out, he closed in on the Bottomless Abyss.
Together with the Beast of Boundary, he pressed the attack.
Until now, none of Taesan’s attacks had affected the Bottomless Abyss. That mass of flesh had literally devoured everything.
But not this time.
It collided with the Beast of Boundary, and the mass of flesh wavered.
The Bottomless Abyss was certainly infinite, but it couldn’t devour everything. Anything beyond a certain rank was beyond its ability to consume.
And Taesan now met that condition.
There was no longer any reason to avoid battle.
Taesan didn’t stop. The Bottomless Abyss, raging, moved as well.
The Old God and Taesan faced each other without backing down.
KUGUGUGUGUNG!
Waves rippled outward. The Beast of Boundary hurled itself forward and slammed into the Bottomless Abyss. The massive lump of flesh trembled.
The Bottomless Abyss didn’t stay still either. It swung black paint, trying to swallow the Beast of Boundary. Taesan issued a quick command to make it evade, but it didn’t fully succeed. A part of the Beast of Boundary was eaten.
It cycled and recovered at a rapid speed, but it was still a clear loss.
Taesan clicked his tongue.
‘So I still can’t handle it properly.’
The Beast of Boundary, now with a complete body, was slowly slipping out of Taesan’s control again.
He had to focus all his attention just to control it. That meant Taesan himself couldn’t move properly.
For now, it was impossible to handle the Beast of Boundary perfectly.
Then—
Taesan made his decision in an instant.
“Come.”
The Beast of Boundary, about to charge the Bottomless Abyss, hesitated. Following its master’s command, it returned to Taesan.
Taesan stroked the slime-like beast.
“Wrap around me.”
He gave the order.
The Beast of Boundary obeyed. Slowly, it climbed over Taesan’s body and began to cover him from head to toe.
It looked like Gray armor.
Naturally, the Bottomless Abyss wasn’t going to watch that calmly. It spewed itself out. With the abyss spilling from the hole, it tried to swallow Taesan whole.
Wearing the Gray armor, Taesan swung his sword.
The beast and Taesan’s wills synchronized, and power exploded. The abyss shattered with a roar. Fragments rained over Taesan, but the Beast of Boundary wrapped around him rejected and excluded it all.
If it was hard to control, then make it one with himself. Force it to match his actions and follow along.
For now, this was the right way to use it.
With the beast worn like armor, Taesan drove strength into his legs again.
The Bottomless Abyss moved its heavy body directly.
A massive collision spread out. Outside, the Demon God guarding the perimeter felt a sudden, crushing burden.
[It’s hard to hold.]
The Demon God muttered with a groan. Her role was to suppress the Bottomless Abyss’s abyss and the shockwaves of power so they wouldn’t affect the universe.
It was the same role the Magician had played on Earth back then.
But she was under no small strain. Every time Taesan and the Bottomless Abyss collided, the barrier she spread shook violently. Unless she drew out her full strength, it looked ready to shatter at any moment.
With her rank hauled up hard, the Demon God watched the battle.
The colossal mass of flesh moved. Dragging foul abyss behind it, it tried to stain the universe and swallow Taesan.
And Taesan responded without giving an inch.
He shattered the abyss head-on and struck the Bottomless Abyss’s true body.
[Incredible……]
The Demon God let out pure admiration.
The Demon God was providing support, but what she was doing was preventing the contamination from spreading beyond the universe. She wasn’t interfering with the fight itself.
Which meant Taesan alone was facing the Bottomless Abyss head-on.
Very few Transcenders could do that. Someone like Rakiratas could defeat a low-tier Old God like the Gatekeeper, but against an Old God like the Bottomless Abyss, it was close to impossible.
Even if Taesan’s alien nature gave him an edge against Old Gods, it was a scene she couldn’t believe.
[Win. Strong one.]
The Demon God murmured softly. Gray and abyss collided, and the waves shook space itself.
KUUUUUUNG!
The battle continued.
Taesan wasn’t being pushed back by the Bottomless Abyss.
And that fact was unexpected even to Taesan.
‘I didn’t think I could fight this evenly.’
He had certainly reached the same realm as the Bottomless Abyss.
But it was an unstable seat he had only just stepped into. He couldn’t properly handle the Beast of Boundary that had gained the cycle of life, so he forced it to synchronize with him.
The biggest advantage of the Beast of Boundary gaining a self was that, despite being his Authority, it could act independently—and he was throwing that advantage away entirely.
And yet, he wasn’t getting overwhelmed.
No. The Bottomless Abyss was slowly weakening.
Taesan soon realized why.
Squelch.
From the hole Taesan had pierced with Multiplication, abyss poured out. The leak didn’t stop. It truly looked like it could stain the entire universe.
The hole Taesan made with Multiplication inflicted damage an Old God could never recover from.
An Old God’s invariability. Their strongest trait: they were born that way, and they never changed.
He had damaged that trait itself.
The Bottomless Abyss could no longer exist as the Bottomless Abyss. A bottom had formed in the bottomless abyss.
The Bottomless Abyss’s body was a collection of Authorities. A hole in that collection meant exactly that.
“…Ho.”
Taesan lifted the corner of his mouth.
He had been thinking about it.
How could he bring down the Bottomless Abyss?
Even attack power exceeding three trillion only managed to open a hole. Killing it through physical force was practically impossible.
He’d tried landing blows with the Beast of Boundary, but it didn’t seem to mean much. He hadn’t been able to come up with a clear method to finish it.
But now, the answer was here.
KWA-AAAANG!
He charged, Boundary wrapped around his entire body.
The Bottomless Abyss swung its Authority. It splattered the leaking abyss in clumps, blocking the path and trying to devour Taesan.
Without stopping, Taesan detonated the Beast of Boundary.
SHRAAASH!
The armor around Taesan surged. It swept outward and dyed everything into Boundary’s domain. It collided with the abyss, and both sides shattered and broke apart.
KWAGAGAGANG!
The Bottomless Abyss shuddered. The mass of flesh expanded and devoured everything.
KRK-KRK-KRACK!
The Beast of Boundary wrapped around Taesan was stripped away. It cycled and refilled itself in an instant, but it was being eaten even faster.
But Taesan didn’t retreat.
Instead, he reached toward the abyss.
[You have activated Soul Rank Usurpation.]
He usurped the Bottomless Abyss’s Authority itself.
Until now, Taesan hadn’t used Soul Rank Usurpation against the Bottomless Abyss.
More accurately, he hadn’t been able to.
Soul Rank Usurpation wasn’t perfect. While usurping, Taesan was left defenseless.
And his opponent was a complete Old God.
He couldn’t guarantee he could properly usurp it and wield it. Rather than taking that risk, he’d judged it better to fight while keeping Soul Rank Usurpation half-sealed.
But not anymore.
The Bottomless Abyss had lost its invariability.
Its Authority had fallen—its bottom had formed.
If so, he could usurp it as much as he wanted.
The abyss fell under Taesan’s control. Like a lower-ranked power, the process carried no great burden.
And Taesan swung the abyss he had usurped.
The Bottomless Abyss that devoured everything—and the Bottomless Abyss’s Authority—collided.
There was no shockwave, no backlash, nothing.
Each abyss devoured the other.
And that was the end of it.
And for the first time, the Bottomless Abyss stopped moving.
It simply stayed there, as if stunned.
Then, a moment later—
Its Authority exploded. A mindless abyss packed with rage shook everything. It was the fury of one whose possession had been stolen.
“Go ahead.”
Taesan smiled and charged. He batted away the black paint flying at him and arrived right before the Bottomless Abyss.
Then he reached out a hand toward it.
[You have activated Soul Rank Usurpation.]
Clunk.
He stole the Bottomless Abyss’s Authority itself.
And he poured the stolen Authority straight back into the Bottomless Abyss. Taesan’s stolen abyss collided with the Bottomless Abyss’s abyss, shaking it.
!!!!!
The Bottomless Abyss twisted violently. To shake Taesan off, it excluded and denied him. Abyss surged up, trying to dye Taesan.
He couldn’t usurp all of it.
So—
“Get up and block it.”
At the command, the Boundary around Taesan surged up. It swept across, blocking the abyss and shattering it.
Taesan didn’t stay still either. He moved quickly, dodging the Bottomless Abyss’s abyss, and latched on again.
[You have activated Soul Rank Usurpation.]
He usurped the abyss and swung it.
In that process, little by little, the Bottomless Abyss’s Authority was undeniably shrinking. Only then did Bardray realize what Taesan was aiming for.
[…Taesan. Don’t tell me you’re—]
“A power with a bottom, if you keep spending it, will eventually show its end.”
He usurped the Bottomless Abyss’s Authority with Soul Rank Usurpation. The moment a bottom formed, it was destined to meet an end someday.
So he would make it spend everything. The Bottomless Abyss’s Authority.
He would drain it until there was nothing left to squeeze out, then finish it.
That was Taesan’s judgment.
[…Is that really possible?]
Even Bardray could sense it instinctively. What Taesan was trying to do was correct.
But what was correct and what was achievable were two different things.
Even if a bottom had formed in the Bottomless Abyss’s abyss, he couldn’t guess what kind of bottom it was. It would never be shallow. It would still be an abyssal bottom, close to infinity.
And Taesan was saying he’d consume it all.
That meant he’d have to dodge and block every one of the Old God’s attacks through the entire process.
It sounded close to impossible.
But for Taesan, it wasn’t that difficult.
An S-rank monster.
A terrifyingly strong monster with millions of HP, a being that could kill Taesan with a single blow.
And Taesan had brought such a being down with a pitiful 50 damage.
At the end of that, he had obtained the alien power called Rank Increase.
He had already done it once.
The opponent had simply changed from an S-rank monster to an Old God. The fundamentals hadn’t changed.
“If anything, this is easier than back then.”
He recalled the memories and experience of the Easy Mode days. Taesan’s gaze sank as his body charged toward the Bottomless Abyss.