SWNOVELXO Chapter 202: Chapter 203: The Thousand-Wound Storm
Chapter 203: The Thousand-Wound Storm
The sun had long since vanished behind thick smoke.
Ash drifted like snow through the southern sky, carried by heat and blood. Where once stood a defensive perimeter, now there was only open ruin—a battlefield drowned in corpses, steam, and war cries.
And Isaac stood at its center.
Not a single drop of blood touched him.
Because nothing could.
—
They had been fighting for hours.
Not minutes.
Hours.
Wave after wave of twisted beasts surged from the treeline—spiders with blade tails, armored reptiles with two heads, flying carrion birds dripping spiral sigils across the air.
None of it stopped.
Not even as their bodies piled.
But Isaac had stopped counting after thirty thousand.
Not because he lost track—but because it no longer mattered.
What mattered was that his skill—his curse, his blessing—was working at full throttle.
[Devourer Omega Matrix – Ω Rank]→ Active: Passive absorption of 30% base stats from all fallen enemies and corpses.→ Acquired: +30,000 base stat points.→ Current Level: 106
Each corpse fed his flame. Each shattered monster whispered strength into his soul. Each kill pushed his existence closer to something beyond understanding.
And they still kept coming.
—
He raised his hand.
"[Phantom Legion – Rank EX]," he whispered.
The ground rumbled.
A thousand spectral weapons erupted from his body—greatswords, halberds, spears, war fans, and bows—all shimmering with moonlight and black flame. They formed an orbit, hovered like sentient stars, then shot outward.
Each weapon struck the ground—
BOOM.Crater.BOOM.Another.BOOM.
The impact alone tore into the hordes.
But the weapons didn't rest in the craters.
They moved.They hunted.They danced through the battlefield like reapers with no rest, carving down abominations with intelligent precision, adapting to every twitch, every charge, every desperate leap.
—
From the cliff above, Vaelyss Vaelorn stared in stunned silence.
Her most disciplined officers—trained from birth, molded by the philosophies of the southern wall—stood paralyzed.
"…Is this…" one of them murmured, "…what he always looks like when he fights?"
Sylvalen stood beside them, her silver hair whipping in the storm of magic. She didn't answer at first.
Then:
"No," she said softly. "This is only when he stops holding back."
—
Selene moved like a flame at the battlefield's edge, shielding a group of soldiers with lunar fire while casting support glyphs into the ground.
But her eyes never left Isaac.
"He's passed the threshold," she whispered.
Lira was at her side, thunder sparking from her palms.
"What threshold?"
"The one where mortals become…" Selene paused. "Something else."
—
In the center of it all, Isaac exhaled.
He felt his Strength—now soaring past twenty-five thousand.His Intelligence—so deep it bent ambient mana to his will.His Willpower—anchoring his mind against the spiral whispers that still tried, feebly, to press into him.
None could touch him.
And every second that passed, his arsenal grew.
Every weapon he summoned became part of a legion without rest.
And he wasn't done.
—
He stepped forward, into the thickest cluster.
Ten beasts lunged at once.
He didn't move.
He simply whispered:
"[Stat Rechannel – Rank EX]→ Confirm: Transfer all stats to Strength for ten seconds."
The world bent.
He swung one conjured blade.
The air itself screamed.
Mountains rumbled.
And a shockwave of raw force flattened everything in a hundred-meter cone.
—
When the dust cleared, silence rippled across the battlefield.
Only the sound of flickering mana, and the clatter of spent weapons.
Then the final enemy fell.
And the sky… stilled.
No more monsters emerged.
Not because they were all dead.
But because something—somewhere—had seen what Isaac had done.
And chosen to wait.
—
From the ridgeline, a young Vaelorn captain dropped to one knee.
"What… what kind of man is he?"
Vaelyss didn't answer.
Sylvalen, Selene, and Lira descended the slope.
And at the center of a wasteland of corpses, Isaac turned to meet them.
Steam rose from his shoulders.
Ash curled in his hair.
And for a moment, even the gods might have paused.
—
(Final Scene – Status Check)
As the others approached in silence, Isaac stood alone amid the battlefield's aftermath. He lifted his hand calmly, letting the system overlay appear before his eyes.
[STATUS – Soulbound Host: Isaac]Level: 106HP: 189,400 / 189,400MP: 68,300 / 68,300Strength: 25,460Agility: 17,944Endurance: 22,730Intelligence: 13,992Willpower: 11,302Charisma: 9,250Luck: ???
Recent Gains:+30,000 stat points absorbed via [Devourer Omega Matrix – Ω Rank]Level increased: 93 → 106
Isaac exhaled slowly.
More power than any king.More stats than most armies.And it still wasn't enough.
Because somewhere in the spiral beyond the veil—
Something was watching.
And it would come.