BUILDING MY OWN EMPIRE - My Journey from Nothing to Overwhelming Power-Chapter 98 - 97 - A Body That Cannot Be Broken

.

The bastard... tricked me so easily.

How did he do it... no, he didn’t—my stupidity did.

I should have focused with everything I had to understand every word he said...

"Are you going to lament your luck?" the master mocked from afar.

I did not reply... since he would not attack, I had the advantage of thinking carefully...

"My lord," a voice whispered in my ear.

"Yes, Monali."

"We must attack together."

"No."

"My lord... this is not the time for stubbornness."

"Heh... don’t worry... this is not the time for stubbornness, it is the time to trust me."

"Of course I trust you... but—"

"Monali."

"As you command... I will not interfere."

Alright... time to begin... let’s start with...

{ System }

{ Storage }

{ Relaxation Butterflies }

It was time to make use of the rewards I obtained from my battle against the Deception Beast...

Suddenly... a void appeared out of nowhere... like a gate.

From within it, more than a thousand brightly colored butterflies surged out.

All the colors emitted from their wings were calm and caused no disturbance to the eyes.

The swarm of a thousand butterflies rushed toward the Fourth Rank Master.

"Where did you get all these butterflies?" the master asked in astonishment.

Well... he had a point... the Deception Beast had told me before that many of the things I obtained from competing with him...

Were creatures and items unique to specific places...

I still had no connection to the outside world...

But the accumulation of each creature I obtained revealed just how unique it was...

Relaxation Butterflies... were creatures with low accumulation... but they possessed a wonderful ability.

The butterflies circled around the master...

Then certain sounds began to echo... like musical notes...

To me... they were merely faint whispers...

But...

To the master, they were something else...

The master’s lips parted... he began to yawn.

The unique ability of the butterflies lies in granting rapid relaxation to the body... slowing all processes...

Giving a sense of drowsiness as if the target had not slept for weeks...

"Are you trying to make me sleep?" the master whispered... then yawned again.

A sense of numbness and relaxation began to invade his body...

No change appeared on his crystal body... but his eyes grew heavy with sleep...

After several minutes... he opened his eyes.

"Oooh..." he murmured in surprise... before him, in the sky, were thousands of massive air blades...

Red glowing threads of flame danced in the sky as if they were dancing dragons...

The master had slept for more than an hour...

During that time...

I launched more than a thousand air blades... enhanced with Flame Art...

Then I cut off their accumulation... not all of it, but a large portion...

The small portion I kept connected... allowed me to guide the blades and the Flame Art.

Before they could fade and dissipate... I released a large amount of accumulation salt...

The salt granted the blades and Flame Art the ability to draw accumulation from the surroundings and use it to mature themselves...

Within an hour, the blades became massive and the Flame Art matured greatly...

"If I had used my own accumulation in this process... I would have lost no less than 30% of it..."

I whispered inwardly... thanking once again the existence of the accumulation salt... then...

I raised my hand...

The Fourth Rank Master’s eyes still held traces of drowsiness...

As more than five thousand blades and threads of flame headed toward him... 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"What an attack..." Suman whispered.

Monali’s eyes and the Rock Leader’s rose high toward the violent assault...

Everyone in the area considered it a decisive and powerful attack...

And when the collision happened...

What they thought became reality...

A massive and violent sound roared...

Red dust filled with flames rose...

Then successive impacts began crashing down violently...

After a while... the sounds calmed...

A glimmer from within the dust...

Then...

A yawn appeared...

Once... twice... the Fourth Rank Master yawned...

His crystal body... was intact as if nothing had happened...

"Good attack..." the master whispered.

"Try making it thirty times stronger... then it might cause me concern."

Only cause concern, huh... this bastard.

Alright, calm down... everything is still within expectations...

The first step succeeded...

I smiled... then...

Once again, I released my dear butterflies...

It didn’t take long before the master fell asleep again...

That crystal body... showed no signs of damage...

Alright, what do I have... how can I break that defense...

He is very confident in his defense... is it blind confidence, or knowledge that the defense is truly strong...

Alright, if it is blind confidence... then the next attack must be capable of shaking it...

Alright... time to build the environment.

{ System }

{ Storage }

{ Red Silk Cockroaches }

First step...

More than a thousand white cockroaches surged out, with wings twice their size and round circular bodies...

The insects approached the master... then began to spit white threads...

Then wove those threads into a large nest...

In a short time... the silk cockroaches began laying eggs... each insect laid no less than twenty eggs...

Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the process... none of them knew what these insects were doing...

Suddenly...

All the insects finished laying eggs...

Then... the insects raised their eight sensory feelers upward...

"It’s time," I whispered... then took out a bag of salt...

I released a large amount... around the entire area.

Then another bag...

And another...

Until the nests contained a great amount of salt...

"Now we wait..."

After a while... the eggs began to hatch...

From within emerged many silk insects...

In two different forms...

One was white like the parent insects...

The other was pitch black with no wings...

Suddenly... thousands of black insects leapt forward... attaching themselves to the master’s crystal body...

Then they began to flicker...

They continued flickering more and more intermittently...

Then the new white insects began weaving new nests and laying eggs...

The process repeated... thousands of insects emerged...

Black and white.

The black ones rushed toward the sleeping master’s body...

The white ones built new homes...

Within an hour...

There were no less than a hundred thousand black and white insects...

The Fourth Rank Master opened his eye...

He found himself in a complete insect environment...

He barely spoke when—

The flickering of the black insects intensified...

Then...

BOOOOM

A massive explosion erupted...

Then another... and another...

An endless chain of explosions began, repeating and increasing...

At one moment the explosion was powerful... at another...

Other explosions were even stronger...

Black silk insects possess the ability to explode violently...

What distinguished them was that their proximity to each other made the combined explosion far greater than an individual one...

And there were more than a thousand black insects exploding together...

The sound and impact were tremendous...

Even allies and enemies moved away, fleeing the effect of the massive explosions...

The ground beneath the Fourth Rank Master... became like a barren desert, its details impossible to discern...

I smiled... a captivating smile.

"This explosion... is 30% stronger than the previous one," I whispered...

Silk cockroaches... unique and special insects...

They have multiple living patterns...

If you command them to reproduce slowly, they will do so... and if you command rapid reproduction, they will do so...

Another reproduction pattern is determined by the type of the cockroach itself...

A mother cockroach or a defensive cockroach that explodes upon attack...

All are types that the master can control with his thoughts, and the insects obey...

The explosion of one cockroach means barely noticeable damage...

The explosion of a thousand... is a strong attack, especially if they are close together... the damage becomes multiplied...

As for an attack of more than a hundred thousand cockroaches... the damage is enormous beyond imagination...

I stood... I had great hope of success... at least causing reasonable damage...

After a while...

Signs began to appear...

The master’s face... his features became visible...

A calm smile appeared on his face...

Then... a voice—

"Good attack... try making it 30 times stronger again," the tone was mocking...

My eyes moved toward his body...

"Haa..."

I smiled... not excessively, but somewhat...

On one side... there was a crack in the crystal body...

This means... there is hope.

"Does that please you?" the master whispered... his head turned toward the place of the injury... then he laughed...

Suddenly... the damage healed...

My eyes narrowed... not because of the healing...

It was natural... to consume accumulation to repair your armor...

What was not natural was...

That the armor itself... began to grow harder... and larger...

After several minutes...

The crystal body that I had barely managed to chip...

Became several times larger... several times harder...

Darker in a way that made anxiety... take over all my thoughts...

Suddenly...

Whispers of despair began to creep into my mind.

Is this real...? Does a Fourth Rank Master have to be this powerful?

I knew... that Fourth Rank Masters possessed overwhelming strength... but...

Does that overwhelming strength have to be to this extent?

Even attacks like these cannot affect him?

How am I supposed to break his defense?

I don’t have an attack that consumes accumulation... and I don’t think simple weapons can cut through the accumulation of a Fourth Rank Master...