CHAPTER 37
037 - Don't You Dare Steal My Kill**

The Black Knight stood at the entrance to the village.
The village had been in a state of mass panic from the moment the Erosion appeared, and the knight watched the scene leisurely, as if enjoying the show.
Then, he raised his sword.
KWAGWAGWAGWAGWANG!
And brought it down.
The sword, overflowing with the energy of Erosion, split the village in half.
The evacuating Elves, seeing their village shattered by the lightning-fast slash, lost their minds even further.
"S-Stay calm! Evacuate calmly! Protect the children and the elderly as you retreat!"
There was one grandmother who had managed to keep her wits about her. The village elder, an old woman who had lived for nearly 900 years.
She had already been preparing for death, counting the days until she would return to the embrace of Mother World Tree. To protect her village, she stepped forward with a sense of responsibility.
Even knowing that if she died to the Erosion, she could not return to Mother World Tree.
"Aaaaaah!"
"Quickly! To the mountains!"
"We must not be taken by the Erosion! That's right! R-Rather, die now! Kill yourselves before the Erosion gets you!"
"Are you crazy?! How can you say that in front of the children!"
"Then what should we do?! If we're consumed by the Erosion, we'll be trapped forever, unable to even die!"
"Even so...!"
But the elder's brave actions changed nothing. In the face of absolute power and terror, a little courage could change nothing.
A shadow fell over the elder's eyes. She couldn't tell if it was the shadow of despair or of her own impending death.
"Kyaa!"
"Mari! No!"
Just then, a fleeing child stumbled and fell nearby. It was Mari, the darling of the village.
Mari's mother rushed to help her up, but unfortunately, the mother and daughter had caught the attention of the Erosion.
The Black Knight approached.
'No! At least the child!'
The elder summoned her remaining strength and moved her aged body. If she could just save the child, it would not be a waste to burn up the last of her life force.
In fact, if she saved the child and died of old age herself, wouldn't that be a good thing, as she would also escape the Erosion?
With that thought, the elder ran, but tragically, the Erosion's sword was faster than the sprint of an old woman who could barely support her own body.
The Black Knight's sword fell toward the mother and child.
KANG—!
And there was someone who blocked it.
He blocked the Erosion's attack? Was there someone so skilled in this village?
The elder looked at the figure in astonishment, and was shocked once more to see that he was not an Elf, but a human.
"Jinwoo! Waaaaah!"
"Huh? Jinwoo? The one Mari picked up...?"
Mari's mother was just as surprised, unable to hide the tremor in her voice.
Only two people in this place were unshaken. Mari, who saw Jinwoo and blindly cried as she clung to him, and...
"Mari. Go with your mom and the villagers and escape to the mountains."
"Jinwoo! Jinwoo!"
"Shh. Stop crying. You have to protect the villagers, Mari."
"Hic... okay, okay."
With one hand, Jinwoo blocked the Black Knight's sword. With the other, he soothed Mari before sending her to her mother.
Both the mother and the elder were too bewildered to think straight. Though Mari was still sobbing, she bravely took their hands and ran towards the mountain behind the village.
SCREEECH—
A grating metallic sound came from the Black Knight's armor as it moved.
CLANG—! After batting Jinwoo's sword away with sheer force, the creature fired another wave of Erosion energy from its sword toward the fleeing villagers.
This time, it was a horizontal slash, one that nobody could have dodged. It would have been a massacre.
If Jinwoo hadn't cut the sword aura down.
"...You're certainly a bit tough."
To Jinwoo's eyes, the sword aura fired by the Black Knight appeared as a blazing Black Flame. It was a perfect embodiment of the Erosion's power.
That was why it possessed absolute destructive force, but it was also why Jinwoo could cut it.
Not only that, he could also absorb it with his own power.
"?"
The Black Knight tilted its head.
Cutting through the Erosion's sword aura was impossible enough, but absorbing it too? Jinwoo must have seemed very strange to it.
"You, are you a monster? Can you talk?"
Jinwoo asked, but there was no reply from the Black Knight. It seemed unable to speak.
Instead, it answered with its sword.
An aura the size of a house bloomed from the sword, and that massive wave of energy fell upon Jinwoo.

The villagers all scattered in different directions. Fearing that crossing one mountain wasn't enough, they crossed another, and then another.
That was the level of terror the Erosion instilled in Elves.
Elves did not fear death so much. Of course, they disliked it and found it painful, but they tended to accept it reverently as the final chapter of life.
This was because they believed that even if they died, their souls would become nutrients for Mother World Tree and one day be born as new life.
But the Erosion was different. If consumed by the Erosion, their souls could not be sent to Mother World Tree. They could not be reborn as new life.
To them, the World Tree was the one true god that sustained the Elven race, and the Erosion was a demon, an absolute evil.
That was why they ran and ran, even after they had already fled a great distance.
But one person remained in the nearby forest.
It was the elder, who had sent the villagers away and stayed behind herself.
"How can such a thing..."
The elder had evacuated, but she was still near the village. From her perch atop a tall tree, she watched the battle taking place in the empty village.
The sight of a single human crossing swords with the Erosion.

KWAAAAANG! KWAGWAGWAGWAGWANG!
The village was destroyed with every swing of the sword. It was already half-ruined and collapsed, but a fierce shockwave swept through, grinding even the rubble to dust.
The Black Knight's sword was less a sword and more like a large-scale magic spell.
'Crazy.'
Jinwoo had been cutting down the sword auras as much as possible to absorb their power, but the knight was unleashing too many, and they were too large.
Moreover, the Black Flame this creature used was slightly different from the ones he had faced before.
'It's tough. Tenacious.'
Every Erosion core he had cut until now had been cleanly severed in a single strike. Except for when he faced the dragon's soul, he had never struggled.
But the flame this creature used was different. It didn't cut easily in one blow; it was stubborn.
This forced unnecessary strength into his wrist, making Jinwoo's movements less efficient. It was a vicious cycle.
Amidst this, house-sized sword auras rained down like a storm. Unless Jinwoo had ten hands, he couldn't possibly block them all.
KWAGWAGWAGWAGWANG!
The village was already completely obliterated. Even if the villagers were to return later, it would be a daunting task to figure out how to rebuild.
In the ruins of the shattered village, the Black Knight did not stop firing its sword auras, trying to completely crush Jinwoo.
"Oh, damn it."
His hands were so busy that a curse rose to the tip of his tongue.
He somehow managed to weave through the gaps and approach the creature to swing his sword, but...
KANG!
The creature easily parried it and jumped back again to create distance. Leaping onto a pillar that was all that remained of a house, the Black Knight began to rain down sword auras from there once more.
'Damn it. You're not even letting your guard down?'
One would think that if it was a knight, it would want to exchange blows up close.
But this creature never let its guard down and never relinquished the advantage it held—its overwhelmingly superior long-range attack capability compared to Jinwoo's.
KWAGWAGWAGWANG!
He deflected a sword aura coming from the side, and the attack flew past him, tearing up the ground and leaving a brutal scar.
Almost simultaneously, another sword aura flew at him from the front, which Jinwoo had to cut down. And not only that, but countless more flew from above and from other directions.
'...Calm down. Remember the sword theory Rona taught me.'
It was a chaotic situation, but Jinwoo's breathing did not falter. He had the ability that stabilized his breathing, and he himself had not yet lost his composure.
He recalled the sword he had discussed with Rona in the waterfall cave in the past. And the sword theory they had learned and shared then.
'There is theory to the sword. Theory means law, and law means the providence of the universe that began with the birth of the stars.'
Therefore, if one could understand the sword, there was nothing in the universe one could not understand.
That was the sword theory Rona spoke of, and she had said it was also the path to divinity.
'I don't know about something so grand.'
He didn't know about the universe or divinity. All Jinwoo wanted to know was how to deal with these sword auras right now.
He cut, and cut again. He strived to understand the laws of this place.
This place, too, was a part of the universe. How could he understand the chaos of this small universe?
And then, he saw something.
'Is this... Erosion?'
He realized it. The creature wasn't exactly unleashing its energy in a neat fashion either.
To continuously pour out such fast and strong energy that it made Jinwoo dizzy, it was impossible for the creature not to use its own tricks and shortcuts.
The incoming sword auras were not independent but were all connected, and it was similar to the structure that formed the boundary of the Erosion.
'I can see the structure of the Erosion?'
Was something like this even possible? His ability to find the core was already unique in the world, but now he could see the entire structural network of that energy as it spread out and eroded the world?
As if possessed, Jinwoo's sword moved, tracing the flow that connected the incoming sword auras, striking their nexus point.
The moment he did, the sword auras could not withstand their own power and all exploded on the spot.
"......!"
The Black Knight was flustered. Not missing the opportunity, Jinwoo cut down the pillar the creature was standing on.
Losing its footing and forced to jump down, the Black Knight had to receive the full force of Jinwoo's sword from the ground.
"You shot too many, so I got the hang of it."
Jinwoo gave the Black Knight his feedback. It might have been more difficult if it had trusted its own swordsmanship and fought him head-on, rather than spamming sword auras.
But there was no one left to hear it.
Jinwoo's sword had split the Black Knight diagonally.

The Black Knight's body was split diagonally and could no longer fight. But the same was not true for its Black Flame.
This small yet tenacious flame had only been cut about halfway by Jinwoo's sword and was now dangling precariously.
"Stubborn."
Still, all he had to do was cut it one more time. As Jinwoo swung his sword...
RUUUUMBLE!
'Huh?'
The ground beneath his feet suddenly shook. Then, before he could steady himself, a massive root appeared.
One, two, three... well over ten thick roots shot out like tentacles, overturning the village.
And then...
They snatched the Black Flame of the knight that he was just about to finish off.
'What the—?!'
A strong thought was transmitted from the roots. No, was it a thought, or should it be called an emotion?
This is mine. I cannot give it to you. That will was conveyed, along with a strong sense of possessiveness that rejected Jinwoo.
Jinwoo knew the identity of those roots by instinct, or perhaps through the subconscious of his past life.
'Isn't that the World Tree?'
The roots of the World Tree, which had appeared like a distant mirage. It was trying to snatch the Black Flame that Jinwoo had minced into pieces right from under his nose!
It was a sight that would throw the Elves into mass confusion if they saw it.
Their one true god, the World Tree, was coveting the evil power of the Erosion.
But Jinwoo was not an Elf, and he had no circumstances like faith in the World Tree. To Jinwoo's eyes, it was simply...
"Where do you think you're going, trying to steal my kill?"
It looked like nothing more than a robbery, someone trying to steal his spoils from the side.
Jinwoo cut down the roots and severed the flame of Erosion that the World Tree was trying to take.
Having been cut by Jinwoo's sword, the flame was absorbed into it.
[A memory of a past life emerges. That sword shall cleave the very air.]
He had properly awakened an ability. It seemed to be an ability to shoot out sword auras or cut enemies from a distance, just like the Black Knight had done.
Phew. As Jinwoo breathed a sigh of relief that the power had safely entered him...
The more than ten writhing roots all turned to look at him at once.
'Is this some kind of horror movie?'
Jinwoo swallowed hard at the ominous atmosphere. This was the World Tree?
Now, Jinwoo could see it. With his eyes that could now see through the structure and flow of the Erosion...
The World Tree was already submerged in Erosion. But it was not a case of being helplessly consumed by it, like other contaminated worlds.
The World Tree was controlling and using the Erosion of its own free will.
'......This is very different from what I thought.'
The World Tree he had imagined was a fresh, all-embracing tree of mercy. But what stood in this place was something akin to a horrifying demon tree that grew in hell.