Requiem Of A Failed Hero

The stone monk's steps drew slowly closer and Raith was sure he heard the monotonous voice again, that voice that was almost sounding like Omnisavant's.

Even if he wanted to doubt that he did, what were these tabs that stayed afloat before his eyes? He was used to it already thanks to the abyss. And with the announcement from the voice of the world, it stayed in front of his eyes.

It had a simple design of a golden tablet with white runes, these weren't English or Korean. But whatever it was Raith didn't need to think about it to understand.

The words just sort of played out before his eyes.

[YOU HAVE AWAKENED AS A PLAYER]

Confused but with no time to react, Raith had to return to the reality of the death that slowly approached him.

Still, the words lingered in his thoughts. Did he awaken as a player?

He had never heard of anything like it.

'Whatever it is let it give me the power to at least be able to survive this situation...'

He wailed internally, his feet were beginning to slowly move back as the monstrosity before him drew nearer.

[Received. I have gotten discovered it]

'Uh? Omnisavant!' He rejoiced in his thoughts as he heard hee rigid voice, at least he wasn't going to die alone.

[Players, according to the world records are a selected group of people who manage to awaken an inherent class]

[Every being born from the cosmos has a general class that they are capable of awakening, upon awakening that class is when they hear the first voice of the world and can summon the system]

[But a smaller percentage are capable of awakening a stronger class, one that defies logic. Every being has this class but a very small percentage can reach it]

[The few percentages that can reach it, are called players]

[Congratulations, you are the 107th player]

Raith's eyes widened.

'Wait there are only one hundred and seven of them...! No–

He sharply sprang out of where he was standing as his eyes fell on the stone monk again.

'Hey hey, what do you mean? One hundred and seven? What is the difference between these players and hunters? And how many things will I be, am I not a ruler already?'

[Being a ruler does not affect being a player. A player cannot become a ruler but a ruler can become a player]

'I don't understand you'

[If you were a player, it'd be impossible for you to accommodate the seed of sin in your soul but you were not a player. Your soul environment had accustomed itself to the seed of sin, hence nothing is changeable when you summoned your inherent class]

'Omnisavant, all these story is good. But given our situation, how does this even help us?'

[In order to properly execute player information...Seeking permission to upgrade unique Omnisavant to ultimate skill Sage_m8de]

[PERMISSION GRANTED]

Raith was shocked, for a moment he didn't understand what just happened. Omnisavant just asked for permission to upgrade herself and the voice of the world responded.

Raith couldn't help but think that there was a strange likelihood of these two. If he could put it into words he would say that Omnisavant seemed like the daughter of the voice of the world.

[Upgrading unique skill Omnisavant]

[Unique skill upgraded]

[New ultimate skill Sage_m8de]

Her voice was still the same, only that now a tinge of life had been added to her tone. She responded like an artificial intelligence that had managed to comprehend history and develop emotions from the experiences it had accumulated from millions of ages.

'I have a question... Omni.. Sage? Which do I even call you'

[It does not matter]

'It does to me, let's just go with Sage. Have you always been able to do this... upgrade?'

[Fight now, talk later]

The stone monk darted towards Raith‐whose eyes shot out, almost escaping his socket, to his surprise, his leg flew off the platform before the stone monk could land on it.

It was just like Raith had wanted, just as he had thought of fleeing from that point, Sage seems to have instantly executed the movement. It feels like both of them have finally managed to become one.

A smile curled on the corner of his lips.

[We are far from winning this war. Stay focused]

'Still, I think we will win'

[What makes you so sure? After all, you are nothing but a failure]

'Ouch... you don't need to rub it in my face. I was broken, I was on the verge of giving up, you have not been here with me, you don't know how much of failure my eyes have seen'

As the monster appeared Raith easily flew out of range and perched himself at the topmost branch of one of the standing trees with humongous branches. The tree itself was fat.

The stone monk's tart face suddenly changed, his lips downturned and a subtle line of frown appeared above his eyebrows as he slowly raised his head to get a good grasp of where Raith was standing.

It plunged into the sky in a second leaving a wake of shattered grounds. The monster was now floating higher than Raith, looking down at him, its mouth slowly returning to its usual indifference.

Raith made a little frown.

'This bastard...'

Raith carved out an arc in the air with his hand, creating numerous black swords from the thin air. He swung his hand forward and they all lunged at the monk.

Pang!

Ppang!Phang!!

The monster with one hand moving like a mirage, blocked all the swords and sent them flying away.

Raith easily picked them up with hand gestures, they wriggled wherever they were and regained themselves back in the air. Raith stretched out another hand, creating a few numbers of them. And with a throw of his hand, he plunged into the air before them, wanting to pierce the aging stones of their target.

But it was to no avail, the stone monk was durable, and fast. His movement was adorned with fluid grace, no sword escaped its hand, even though they still managed to get back up and attack again. The monster didn't also seem fazed by the fact that the swords were coming back again.

If anything, he looked like he was enjoying it.

And this caused Raith to be plagued with some confusion.

'Hey hey hey, isn't this getting too annoying... this bastard looks like he can do this all day'

But that was not the case for Raith. Even though he had now realized to a certain level the essence of sword Intent and could manipulate Bal without having to cut himself, the source of the sword manifestation was his heart, it is safe to say that Raith was expending a great deal of cosmic energy to control these swords.

And he was getting tired from it. Controlling twenty of them at once was tasking. Very much than even Raith realized.

[Notice. Your cosmic energy is very low]

[Your Stamina is low]

[Your movement will be slowed]

'Fuck! Did I outdo myself'

[Yes...]

It was just a few minutes of using the swords and he was already out of energy, his Stamina too was low.

'Damnit all, I'm just so fucking weak'

[Activating Class skill 'Redo']

[All your Stamina will be recovered instantly]

[All your energy will be recovered instantly]

"Uh? What is this?"

This was a benefit of the inherent class he had managed to awaken a few minutes ago, even though he wasn't feeling any visible change and was still feeling pretty much useless.

His breath slowly returned to the usual calmness, and the stuffiness of his chest also simmered down. He was feeling better compared to a few seconds ago and this was good.

Raith looked up at the monster and smirked.

'How'd you like to continue'

Before he could lunge himself into the air, the monster pointed its index finger forward with a crude smile on its stoned face.

[Dodge!!]

Sage_m8de shouted.

"Dharma"

Whizzz

Barely making it in time, Raith was able to escape the invisible force that carved a crater into the massive tree. A large chunk of the tree disappeared and disintegrated in a flash.

Seeing the wide arc that rid the tree of a large part of its body, Raith's heart shook with panic as he landed on a roll and shot to his feet as fast as he could.

'Does it have skills?'

[No. This is not skills]

'Then?'

[This is arts]

[This monster is capable of using arts]

'Ah!'

Arts he knew a thing or two about from meeting with two different asura and it was not a good memory. Raith did not like his fight with the two of them at all. The first one was netted and he still almost lost his life, in the second one he was not able to successfully land a punch and was close to being sealed in a loop of time forever.

'This thing called arts is to my disadvantage'

[You have arts too]

[We should be able to raise our chance of winning this fight if you can master your arts in this battle]

'Eh? I have arts? Why is this the first time I am hearing of this?'

[I told you I was still busy analyzing your Origin skill SOURCE]

'Yes you mentioned'

[I have analyzed 40% of Origin skill SOURCE]

[I have discovered the availability of art, and I have also discovered that you are not able to bring out the wicked potential of the sin of greed due to the Origin skill SOURCE]