GLOBAL AWAKENING: My 10,000x Exp Multiplier-Chapter 73: []The Divine-Eyed Swordsman, A Clash of Sight
The transition matrix dropped Vahn Ryker onto the next floor of the Tower of Combat.
The harsh stone architecture of the lower floors was completely gone.
He did not step onto a cracked stone arena or a molten platform. He stepped onto the surface of a perfectly still and endless lake.
The water was barely an inch deep and rested over an invisible solid foundation.
Above him, the artificial sky stretched out in vibrant shades of violet and deep indigo. The surface of the water acted as a clear mirror that reflected the sky so perfectly that the horizon line disappeared.
It felt like standing right in the middle of space.
Vahn exhaled slowly and watched his breath mist in the cool air. The smell of dried blood that had stuck to him for the past twenty-nine floors was replaced by the clean scent of fresh rain.
It was a beautiful and quiet environment.
But in the Chronos Spire, quiet places always lead to extreme violence.
A hundred meters away, the Floor Guardian sat cross-legged on the surface of the water.
She was human in appearance and wore flowing robes of pale silver and deep green.
A long curved katana rested across her lap in a dark scabbard. Her long black hair fell loosely down her back and swayed gently in the wind.
But what immediately caught Vahn’s attention was the thick silk blindfold wrapped securely around her eyes.[Labyrinth Boss: Jade, The Divine-Eyed Swordsman]
↳ Level: 55 (Mythic Guardian)
↳ HP: 4,000,000 / 4,000,000
"You step lightly for a man who has slaughtered his way through a fortress of iron and stone," Jade spoke.
Her voice was calm and disciplined, echoing perfectly across the endless lake. She did not turn her head or reach for her blade.
"I am merely maintaining an optimal pace," Vahn replied smoothly.
He closed the distance at a casual and unhurried walk. His boots barely disturbed the water and left only the faintest ripples in his wake.
"The lower floors were designed for endurance. This floor feels designed for precision."
"It is designed for truth," Jade corrected softly.
She reached up and caught the edge of her silk blindfold with her slender fingers. She pulled it away, letting the fabric dissolve into harmless white pixels before it even hit the water.
She opened her eyes.
They were stunning. Jade’s irises burned with a brilliant golden light that made the magic in the air vibrate.
These were not the eyes of a standard boss. This was a highly specialized Mythic skill.
"My Heaven Eyes perceive the absolute reality of this world," Jade stated as her golden gaze locked onto Vahn.
"I see the flow of mana in the air. I see the tiny tension in a challenger’s muscles before they even decide to strike. I see the path of a blade before it is drawn. I see the truth of all things."
She tilted her head, and a deep frown creased her elegant features.
The golden light in her eyes flared brighter and hummed with a sudden confusing intensity.
"Yet when I look at you, the truth contradicts itself," Jade murmured. Her voice lost its absolute certainty.
"My eyes read the system data. They tell me you are a Level 1 entity. They tell me you possess zero magical augmentations. By all standard metrics, you are a fragile and helpless novice who should have been crushed on the first floor."
Vahn stopped exactly ten meters away from her.
He did not drop into a combat stance. He simply rested his hands in the pockets of his dark combat jacket.
"The system data is often a matter of perspective, Jade. What else do your eyes tell you?"
Jade slowly stood up, and her hand finally gripped the hilt of her katana. The relaxed and serene Guardian vanished, replaced by a warrior radiating absolute lethal intent.
"My instincts and the latent data gathered by my Heaven Eyes scream that you are the most terrifying anomaly to ever step foot in this tower. They tell me that if I blink, I will cease to exist."
"Your eyes are highly functional," Vahn smiled with genuine respect.
It was rare to find a system entity that relied on intuition over raw numbers.
"They see past the level cap. But they still only see the surface of the water. They do not see the ocean beneath."
"Then show me," Jade challenged.
She drew her katana in a fluid and blinding arc. The blade was forged from pale translucent crystal and hummed with pure kinetic force.
She did not wait for Vahn to draw a weapon. Jade vanished.
She possessed Level 55 Mythic stats, and her speed fundamentally broke the sound barrier. To a normal player, she would have been an invisible blur of certain death.
But Vahn was not a normal player. He possessed 9,999 base Agility.
Jade appeared directly behind his right shoulder. Her crystal blade swept toward his neck in a flawless horizontal decapitation strike.
Vahn simply tilted his head forward by two inches.
The humming blade sheared through the empty space where his neck had been a fraction of a millisecond prior. It only sliced a few strands of his dark hair.
Jade didn’t pause. Her Heaven Eyes predicted the evasion.
She used the momentum of her missed strike to pivot flawlessly and drove the bottom of her sword toward his spine.
Vahn stepped casually to the left and pivoted on his heel to face her.
For the next twenty seconds, the serene lake became a zone of extreme violence.
Jade unleashed a heavy barrage of strikes, thrusts, and sweeping arcs. Her katana moved so fast it created a dome of razor-sharp wind around them, slicing the surface of the water into a chaotic spray of mist.
She was fighting perfectly. Her Heaven Eyes read the tiny shifts in Vahn’s posture, calculating his evasions and striking exactly where he was supposed to be.
But Vahn was never there.
He didn’t draw the Soul-Bound Shadow Blade. He didn’t use his Epic Runic Aegis to block.
He simply wove through the storm of crystal and wind with his hands still resting in his pockets.
He moved with terrifying precision. He ducked under a thrust by a millimeter. He side-stepped a sweeping arc with absolute lazy precision.
He wasn’t fighting a battle. He was dodging raindrops in a storm, completely untouched by the heavy rain.
"How?" Jade gasped.
Her breathing grew heavy, and the golden light in her eyes blazed with frantic desperation.
"I see your muscle tension! I see your center of gravity! I am striking your exact location! Why are you not there?!"
"Because you are calculating my movements based on the physics engine of this world," Vahn explained smoothly. He ducked under another desperate slash.
"You see my muscles. You see the physical mechanics of my avatar. But you are entirely blind to the code."
Vahn pulled his hands from his pockets. His deep purple eyes flared with a blinding light. The Verdant Chronos Sight engaged.
The serene starry lake vanished from his perception.
The universe broke down into flowing streams of binary code and stark geometric wireframes. Vahn didn’t look at Jade’s physical body. He looked at the foundational data driving her existence.
"Your Heaven Eyes read the present," Vahn spoke, his voice dropping into the cold and absolute tone of the System Administrator. "My eyes read the rendering queue."
Jade lunged forward and poured every ounce of her Level 55 mana pool into a single devastating thrust aimed directly at Vahn’s heart.
It was a perfect and unavoidable strike.
Vahn didn’t dodge. He raised his right hand. He didn’t intercept the blade. He reached directly into the empty space three inches to the left of the katana’s path.
He closed his hand, and his fingers gripped empty air.
A split second later, Jade’s advanced movement skill forcefully corrected her path. It shifted her spatial coordinates to bypass his expected block.
She phased directly into Vahn’s waiting hand.
To Jade, it felt as though she had willfully thrown her own throat into a steel vise.
Vahn’s grip locked around her neck and instantly stopped her forward momentum. The sheer kinetic shockwave of the sudden halt shattered the crystal blade in her hands, sending a spray of translucent shards skipping across the water.
Jade choked. Her golden eyes went wide with absolute horror.
Her Heaven Eyes had completely failed. The man holding her hadn’t reacted to her attack. He had arrived at the destination before she even initiated the code.
"You see the mechanics of the game, Jade," Vahn whispered. His glowing azure and emerald irises stared directly through her. "I see the architecture of the server."
He didn’t crush her throat. He didn’t engage the devastating Force of the Void to obliterate her physical form.
Vahn respected the Guardian. She had fought with honor and relied on skill rather than the arrogant stat padding of the elite corporate lords.
"System," Vahn commanded softly. "Target: Floor Guardian. Initiate localized data conversion. Override combat execution."
He channeled a surge of raw unallocated experience points from his internal reservoir and flooded the command directly through his grip on her neck.
He didn’t deal physical damage. He simply unwrote her hostile parameters.
Jade’s body went completely rigid. The golden light in her eyes flickered, dimmed, and then vanished entirely.
Her massive four million point health bar didn’t tick down. It instantly turned gray, registering a non-lethal system defeat.
Vahn released his grip.
Jade collapsed to her knees and gasped for air as the combat algorithms binding her to the Spire were gently severed.
She looked up at him. The divine light was gone from her eyes, leaving behind the exhausted and relieved gaze of a warrior who had finally found a superior truth.
"You are not a player," Jade whispered in awe. She bowed her head until her forehead touched the shallow water. "You are the master of the board. Pass, Architect. The upper floors await your judgment."[Notice: Floor 30 Cleared. Non-Lethal Resolution Achieved.]
↳ Base EXP Gained: 10,000.
↳ Hidden Modifier Applied: The 10,000x Factor.
↳ Total EXP Gained: 100,000,000.
[Level Up!]
Vahn turned away from the kneeling Guardian as the golden light of the level up washed over him.
The ambient environment of the starry lake dissolved and was replaced by a massive glowing blue transition matrix leading higher into the dark.
He had tested his eyes. His hardware was flawless. He looked up into the suffocating darkness of the Spire, and his thoughts briefly drifted to Aria, Sia, and Hana waiting in the White City.
"Patience," Vahn murmured to the empty air with a warm voice. "I am coming home."
