How to Live as an Immortal Chapter 124

Chapter 124

You’re a ta-human

It was the precursor to ripples blooming within stagnant currents.

The horizontal axis stretching from the shoulder, forearm, and back of the hand all the way to Nick’s chest spun violently, unraveling the thickly ford layer of air without leaving behind even a single strand.

A counterattack made possible only because the defense consisted purely of gas.

Boom!

The impact, as though heaven and earth themselves had convulsed, spread all the way behind Nick’s back and created a single wave. The angle, spacing, even the distribution itself had been close to perfection. Even if my eyes had been intact, this mont would not have changed.

Yet within that brief instant, Nick had—

‘Avoided it?’

I had clearly intended to strike his chest, yet what I felt was a hard collarbone instead. The sensation could only be explained by him twisting his waist to evade it. As I questioned what the variable had been, instinct answered at the sa ti.

“Your eye.”

A prosthetic eye that went beyond predicting movents and instead foresaw the future. That was why his pupil never stayed still for even a mont. What that eye saw was not the present, but what lay beyond it.

It was a treasure too excessive for Nick. The very fact that he could not completely control it proved as much.

“So that’s why you kept it covered with an eyepatch.”

“Cough, cough. You bastard…….”

Just as Ga-on had expected, Nick’s right eye was peering 0.2 seconds into the future, a fragnt of a world that would never arrive. Since it was not an immutable truth but an abstraction that could change at any mont, it continually interfered with his perception without quite being a hallucination.

Because he had prepared multiple Slots to avoid being ensnared by those fleeting delusions, it was only natural for his head to grow increasingly hot.

But that was not the only place burning.

When he suddenly looked down, his shoulder had also caved inward. This was the result even after barely avoiding the blow. The continuous rattling sounded like improperly fitted bolts and nuts.

Proof that the fight, which should have ended as re play, had gradually intensified.

A hollow laugh burst from Nick’s mouth. As a bonus, his face twisted like that of an evil spirit.

“So you had a hidden trick up your sleeve. But this is the end.”

He declared it while spreading both arms wide.

“Feel the weight of the heavens.”

Why was the ability manipulating air currents rather than rely gas? The reason was painfully obvious. Though the difference was only a single word, the gap created by it was imasurable.

The mont the atmosphere resonated according to Nick’s will, Ga-on had no choice but to drop to one knee before him. An irresistible pressure had slamd down from above.

I planted one hand against the ground to rise, but I could not budge. Rather, as though proving such an action was useless, the ground crumbled and abruptly sank.

A phenonon that loftily overwheld everyone present without sound or vibration.

‘Atmospheric pressure?’

Humans were, fundantally, no different from fish. Instead of swimming through the vast ocean, they rely swam through the atmosphere. The reason they could not feel that blessing extending beyond the horizon was because the sa pressure acted equally from all directions.

But what if that balance collapsed, even on one side alone?

There was no need to ask. The force that had been offset all this ti would simply co crashing down.

The weight of air was 1 kilogram per 1 square centiter.

Since the surface area of a human body was 2 square ters, that ant a load of 20 tons pressing down. And all of it consisted solely of gaseous weight. It could neither be grasped nor escaped from.

Bones would shatter, and joints and ligants would scream as they tore apart in an instant.

If he could not make use of his greatest advantage—his inability to die—then Ga-on was no different from an enhanced human. Being crushed flat was inevitable. However, that did not an there was no way to break through it.

Hadn’t he already altered the direction of the air currents once before?

To be crushed ant that so sort of flow was being exerted, and if that was the case, then it could naturally be controlled through rotation.

But as though it had read his intentions, blades of wind ca flying toward him. It was a surprise attack aid at his blind spot, yet Ga-on extended a hand and returned it to nothingness. The mont it touched him, he twisted its axis and diverted it far away.

Perhaps because his life was hanging by a thread, the sensation of controlling the False Rotation Axis seed to grow increasingly sharper. No matter how many tis it continued, the result was the sa. Rather than exposing openings, he only beca more proficient.

In the end, he succeeded in standing upright. By constructing several axes that counteracted the atmosphere pressing down upon his back.

To Nick, it was an utterly humiliating sight. Even after utilizing his right eye until his brain overheated, the scales had not tilted even slightly.

Frustrated and resentful, he irritably pounded his own head before erupting in a fit.

“Why won’t you fall? Don’t you understand that the longer you endure, the greater your pain becos? Don’t tell you actually think you can surpass ? Truly?”

If so, then it was a deeply misguided delusion. There was no way a bottom-feeding fixer and the elite Mars Defense Force could stand on equal footing. Moreover, Nick was a ta-human. In a sense, he belonged to a race that could be called chosen.

But regrettably, fellow ta-human or not, that was not what interested Ga-on.

“Now that I think about it, you’re not much different from either.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That eye of yours. Why exactly did you implant it? Judging by what I see, the side effects seem pretty severe. Your self-control’s slipping, and your inner thoughts are leaking out more and more.”

“…….”

It was then that Nick felt sothing snap near his temple. Covering his face with one hand, he laughed like a madman.

A bastard who looked ready to collapse at any mont was worrying about soone else? He had humored him out of pity for how pathetically he struggled, yet now the fool was overstepping his bounds without even knowing his place.

“So, you still have enough energy left to keep running your mouth.”

In that case, there was no choice but to show him. That there existed a realm unreachable through effort or passion alone.

Only after that could one speak of differences in class.

“Hoo.”

He exhaled deeply as though spewing flas. It was a breathing technique every mber of the Ergency Disaster Response Unit was required to master. Its effect was simple. It activated the body and exploded its latent potential.

The resulting amplification surpassed even doping.

For agents who had to battle ta-humans barehanded on the front lines, it was an absolutely indispensable skill.

Ordinarily, the output depended on the lung capacity one had trained, but Nick had broken through those innate limitations with his ability.

“Hoo.”

This ti, despite the breath being shallow and brief, a deafening roar like a thunderclap resounded in every direction. What now served as Nick’s lungs was the entire atmosphere itself. The air swirling and condensing above his head repeatedly spiraled inward and burst back out, swelling in size.

Even saying that a black hole had been reinterpreted as a storm would not have sufficed to describe the sight.

The currents wrapping around its surface flowed so slowly they seed motionless, but that was rely due to the strobe phenonon reaching its extre.

Its might was the very punishnt of an enraged god.

Kuwaaang!

As expected, the re appearance of the storm shattered the chamber ceiling and surged outward. It was then that the light of Phobos—the satellite—poured down through the suddenly ford opening.

At that level, it was at the threshold of Stage 3.

Jin Geon looked up at Nick—no, at the storm—and calmly gauged its power. It was not an opponent one could face without thorough preparation.

“At least you should escape, Mr. Ga-on!”

“Calm down.”

Standing with his back to Jin Geon, Ga-on faced Nick—no, the storm itself.

The natural disaster manifested in the mortal world advanced—no, it shot forward—while shredding apart everything it touched.

After the pulverized rocks and dirt scattered into the wind and vanished into the distance, the boundary between aboveground and underground had already collapsed, leaving only differences in elevation.

Of course, Ga-on, who could not see, was unable to grasp such scenery—

“Die.”

—and could only clearly hear the echoing malice.

In truth, that alone was enough. It was a signal telling him that the collision was near.

Kuwaaang!

It was because of that that even after being swept into the center of the storm in the blink of an eye, he did not lose his composure.

The unrefined wind was like a violent cold wave. At tis it scraped at him as though trying to tear open his throat, while at others it tugged at his coat as though trying to rip it away.

An ordinary person would have had their limbs torn apart and died at this point, but Ga-on was different. While fighting Nick, inspiration had accumulated within him to the point of overflowing.

Now it was ti to realize it.

Dividing a fleeting instant apart, he ford arbitrary axes over his skin and lined them up in succession. Thousands, tens of thousands of streams of air twisted continuously like snakes, yet he captured every single change without missing one.

Ga-on did not stop there and instead reverse-calculated the flow of the storm before applying reverse rotation to it. When opposing directions—rotations—collided, cancellation was inevitable.

Positive and negative.

And the union born from them.

It happened yet did not happen, arose yet did not arise—

[Arhat Second Form Muwi Nature]

The profound principle of the Middle Way.

There was no need to forcibly resist every vortex. If he could rely secure a domain where only he himself could walk, then how was that any different from safety?

However, to Nick, who did not understand the process, it was like a bolt from the blue.

“What the…….”

Ga-on, who should have faced the storm head-on—Ga-on, whom he had been certain had died on the spot—had returned completely unhard. A miracle achieved entirely through his own power, without the aid of any Slot or Unit.

By Nick’s common sense, it was absolutely impossible to understand.

No, there was one explanation.

“You’re a ta-human. Right? There’s no other way to explain this situation. Ah, so that’s why you pretended not to know.”

Denying reality as he babbled whatever ca to mind, Nick turned toward Jin Geon.

“You saw it too, didn’t you, Jin Geon!”

“…….”

Jin Geon’s “eyes” had indeed seen it clearly as well. The mont Ga-on overca the crisis through martial arts alone. If one understood the process, it was a sight that could only inspire awe. Though judging by the look of it, Nick would never accept it.

Tap.

As if to show it off, Ga-on took a single step forward, and Nick unleashed air currents violently enough to seem on the verge of convulsing. Even after pouring out a storm, its overwhelming power had not diminished in the slightest.

Yet why had things begun flowing differently from before? Why was it that his wind no longer reached Ga-on?

Feeling as though reality would consu him if he thought rationally for even a mont, Nick resisted blindly.

“You think you can deceive and walk away unhard? You’ll be summarily executed. Even if Chairman Baek Seol were standing here, she wouldn’t be able to stop it!”

Not even a trace of composure could be felt from the way he stubbornly insisted on it. His words and actions were enough to make one question whether he was even the sa person from before.

“This is an opportunity.”

The fact that Nick’s hysteria had reached its peak ant that the implanted eye had reached its limit. Since his danger-sensing ability had deteriorated, it was ti to put an end to things.

That was why Ga-on deliberately endured the newly surging currents of air sweeping across the area once more.

Among the breezes fading like lingering echoes, Ga-on seized one and sent rotation coursing through it.

A beat later, a gleaming piece of tal buried itself into Nick’s chest.

Nick’s eyes widened at the heavy impact that seed to shake his entire body. What had inflicted pain upon him was a sharply honed folding knife.

“You definitely said you didn’t have a sword…….”

“What kind of prey believes the hunter’s words?”

Everything until now had rely been groundwork. From the very beginning, the weapon to kill Nick had already been prepared. The only issue had been how to finish him off.

Thud—

Even after collapsing backward, Nick’s eyes refused to close.