Chapter 71: This Time, I Bet on Myself to Win Too
A searing pain surged from the left eye that had been sliced by the military spike.
However, there wasn’t the slightest fluctuation in Rast’s expression, not even in the movements of his hand.
Everyone was born fragile and afraid of pain—he was no exception.
It was just that, having gone through more, having endured more pain in the past, his threshold for pain had become higher, and thus his tolerance stronger.
Rast’s wrist flipped once more, and with surgical precision, the military spike in his hand cut into his right eye as well.
Accompanied by the piercing pain in his eye socket, his vision, soaked in blood, was completely reduced to nothingness.
Blood mist, the town, the fractured cracks, the dark sky and the blood moon...
Everything vanished, leaving behind only pure darkness—a world devoid of light.
Naturally, along with that disappearance came the vanishing of the hallucinations born of the blood mist—visions that had constantly invaded his mind.
...
At the same moment, another crest regalia at Rast’s collar quietly shattered.
It turned into a stream of pale silver light, gathering at his fingertips.
It took the form of a long sniper rifle, with an extended and slender scope.
「Sevenfold Perspective」.
Aside from the heavy revolver named 「Iron-Crested Moon」, this was Rast’s second crest regalia, evolved from the Nightworld after he cleared Deep Blue Port.
If someone had been watching Rast’s actions now, they would have found them utterly irrational.
Leaving aside the fact that under the shroud of blood mist, visibility in the entire Frostwater Town was severely limited, making the scope-equipped sniper rifle practically useless...
Even without the blood mist to obscure vision—
A man who had stabbed out both of his own eyes, turning himself into a blind man, trying to use a sniper rifle—this alone was utterly absurd.
The most reasonable explanation would be that Rast had already gone mad from the mental corruption of the blood mist, losing even the most basic capacity for logic.
Yet, at this very moment—
Rast was more clear-headed than ever.
He was very much aware of who he was. He wasn’t an ordinary Night Traveler.
Whether it was the mysterious origin of his Night Blade, the 「The Fool’s Library」, or the three-hundred-year cycle he had experienced in Deep Blue Port, both had granted him extraordinary potential and unique traits.
But when it came to mastery over supernatural abilities, or pure destructive power... due to a lack of accumulation, Rast was still far from being on par with those of higher rank.
After all, from the moment he obtained the Night Blade 「The Fool’s Library」, and began to comprehend the extraordinary system based on the twenty-two long-sequence tiers, only five or six days had passed in total.
It was a limitation imposed by time.
The experience of spending years, even decades within Deep Blue Port to hone a skill or achieve a goal had taught Rast to revere the value of time...
Without the tempering of time, no amount of talent or genius was meaningful.
And right now, the remnant of calamity in Frostwater Town... had already claimed the lives of seventeen Night Travelers from Starfall University.
Those tasked with scouting and opening up the calamity remnants were at least third-tier. Even though Rast had now advanced to second-tier, they were still a full level above him.
Moreover, those ranked at the top of the Obelisk, the strategy team, had already experienced the Nightworld many times.
They were nothing like Rodri, who merely possessed a rank and a Night Blade without any actual combat experience.
Among those who entered, there were even complete elite strategy teams, including powerful figures like Fran—ranked eighteenth on the Obelisk, just one step away from the Round Table Twelve. Her Night Blade excelled in both scouting and combat.
There was no way none of them noticed the abnormality in the blood mist.
They must have tried to directly assault the source of the corruption—the illusory blood moon.
But in the end, they all failed.
They were turned into puppets controlled by threads, losing their sense of self.
So, from beginning to end...
Rast’s actions weren’t like in Deep Blue Port, where he had full intelligence, considered every detail, every variable, and set up a perfect plan that was destined to succeed from the start.
This time, it was a gamble.
A high-stakes gamble, with success barely more likely than his Deep Blue Port run—where failure meant total loss.
...
“Rast ge-ge... what are you doing?”
Grey asked, her voice laced with confusion.
She was, after all, just a minor—a young girl. Her mind and spirit were still underdeveloped.
Now she had to simultaneously command a power that interfered with time and resist the mental corrosion of the blood mist.
It was simply beyond her capacity.
She didn’t know how much longer she could hold on...
All Grey could do was hold on for as long as possible, giving Rast time to kill her.
However, when Grey looked into the blood mist at Rast—she was still shocked.
He was a figure without eyes, his hollow sockets dripping beads of blood.
Holding a slender sniper rifle, he walked step by step into the blood mist ahead.
“It’s nothing.”
“I’ve always been the type who likes to have everything planned out before acting—analyzing every possibility until there’s no flaw left. I don’t really like that reckless, head-on style.”
“But this time...”
“Some crazy woman decided on her own to dump all the troublesome matters on me.”
“And then she left, alone. Even now, whether she’s alive or dead is unknown.”
Despite his terrifying, eyeless face, Rast was actually smiling.
“So, I’ll go crazy with her just this once.”
“Since Shiltina bet on me winning—”
“Then this time, I will also...”
“Bet on myself to win.”
...
Boom—
A faint golden light radiated from Rast’s hand.
【Level 1 · All Things as Weapons (Unlocked)】
【Imbue any object with the concept of “weapon” and bring it completely under your control. If the object is already of fine quality, mastery is significantly increased. This skill originates from the tale of a nameless knight who defeated powerful enemies using only a tree branch.】
That was how the 「The Fool’s Library」 described 「All Things as Weapons」.
Imbuing all things with the concept and definition of “weapon.”
If used by someone like Shiltina, a rapier-wielder, even a tree branch could be swung like a sword forged through thousands of tempers, slaying powerful enemies.
However, Rast’s weapon of choice wasn’t the “sword”, but rather “bullet.”
And so—
In that faint golden radiance—
The two eyeballs in his hand quietly condensed, solidified, and transformed.
Eventually—
The two blood-dripping eyeballs transformed into two pointed rounds with pale and crimson patterns, shaped in an aerodynamic streamlined form.
Rast picked one of the pointed bullets and slowly loaded it into the chamber.
His vision was pitch-black, completely void, yet he still heard it—
The crisp sound of a round sliding into the chamber.
And so, the mental suggestion that had been solidified for hundreds of years was triggered.
All irrelevant thoughts, emotions, distractions unrelated to sniping... froze over like a lake in winter.
The sound of loading the bullet was the switch Rast had set for himself—the switch to force his mind into a state of flow.
Time slowed.
The world fell into silence.
Though he had lost his sight through self-mutilation, entering complete flow and intuition granted Rast a sixth sense beyond the five.
Blood mist, night sky, town houses wrapped in thread, the ticking hands on the clock tower, the rustle of the forest stirred by the evening wind... all irrelevant information was swiftly perceived, then filtered and discarded.
At last—
He caught it.
That faint yet clear heartbeat deep within the blood mist.
Thump—
Thump—
Thump—
With every beat, the blood mist and threads shivered in unison.
That was the source of the blood mist—
The Pollutant.
It was now fully activated. Though a pollutant, it had become a living being.
In the instant Rast locked onto that heartbeat—he pulled the trigger.
The bullet was fired, muzzle rising, fire bursting out.
At the same time, the blood mist suddenly surged, no longer an illusory hallucination, but now manifesting into substance.
In Rast’s perception, the heartbeat shifted in an instant, appearing in a direction completely opposite to where he had just aimed.
That was the fully activated pollutant’s ability—
So long as it was within the blood mist it created, it could change its position without limit.
Even if those previous powerful Night Travelers had resisted mental corruption and illusions, and finally reached the source—just one surge of mist...
And they would lose their direction again.
Then, after a long search and exhausting battle, their will and stamina would be drained completely.
Eventually, they’d be lost in the mist, turned into puppets controlled by thread.
All the previous Night Travelers were defeated this way.
The pointed round tore through the atmosphere with a deafening sonic boom.
Its power seemed unstoppable, yet its trajectory ended in an empty space.
It seemed like Rast’s sniper shot—fired at the cost of his own eyes—was going to end in vain.
Yet, in the very next instant—
Boom—
A brilliant light burst forth.
As if the endless blood mist was suddenly pierced by a beam of radiance.
A dazzling glow appeared on the spinning, speeding bullet.
Like a towering lighthouse suddenly rising on a fog-covered sea.
The beam dispelled the darkness and fog, illuminating a clear, distinct course.
【Tower · Navigator (Unlocked): Second-tier ability of the Tower sequence. Your eyes can pierce through fog and darkness. Even in a pitch-black sea, you will never lose your way.】
The second-tier ability of the Tower sequence—Rast’s newest unlocked skill.
A skill tied to the essence of his eyes.
And now, even though Rast had carved out his own eyes and elevated them into sniper bullets using 「All Things as Weapons」...
The 「Navigator」 trait ingrained within them hadn’t disappeared.
Pierce through the fog and darkness.
Never be lost.
Shhhk.
The radiant trajectory lit up the eternal dark night, casting hues of dusk and dawn like a rainbow across the void.
And then, it struck the heart of the blood mist—
The source of all corruption.