Law of Causality

Eye of Truth.

The eye that sees through all principles and laws.

Unlike Yuseong, who had used its overpowered abilities to steal various skills and discover unique applications like near-precognitive prediction and Karma Operation, Alice, the original owner of Eye of Truth, had never properly utilized its power.

At best, she had only used it to find enemy weaknesses or bypass security systems.

The reason was that she had been using part of the eye’s power to control the Dragon Heart’s magic power from going berserk.

But now that her body was fully complete.

Now that she could handle and control the Dragon Heart’s magic power entirely with just her body’s capabilities without having to focus on it separately, Alice could use Eye of Truth purely for seeing through principles and laws.

This was the result.

“Is this how it’s done?”

“Wh-what?”

Rainbow-colored arrows floated around Alice.

There was no doubt.

This was definitely the arcane magic passed down only to Elven Queens.

“Impossible!”

Screaming, Lorraine created and shot identical-looking arrows at the rainbow arrows flying toward her.

Woong!

The two arrows collided and disappeared without a trace after creating a small shockwave.

Prism Arrow was magic that contained seven attributes and transformed into the element that would deal the most damage upon hitting its target.

Prism Arrows disappearing like this only happened when they collided with other Prism Arrows.

‘It’s not just the appearance that’s the same!’

Seeing more rainbow arrows flying in succession, Lorraine chanted the incantation for Prism Arrow while making hand seals to cast a binding spell.

Light green chains poured out from all directions and wrapped around Alice’s entire body.

The highest-grade binding magic that prevented the use of all magic had successfully hit.

However, her relief was short-lived as the chains were helplessly cut by the plasma sword Alice swung.

Slash!

Alice, who had somehow closed the distance, swung her plasma sword and deeply cut across Lorraine’s chest.

Though screaming, Lorraine responded calmly.

Countless spells appeared around Alice, ranging from regular magic, to original magic, to forbidden magic.

Almost simultaneously, numerous spells also appeared around Lorraine.

In that instant, seeing the faint smile on Alice’s face, Lorraine finally understood the meaning behind the earlier words “taught me.”

BANG!

The shockwave created by hundreds of spells exploding at once swept through the surroundings.

The impact was strong enough to distort space itself, but Alice endured it with her powerful defenses while approaching and attacking Lorraine.

She beheaded her with the plasma sword and blasted her entire body apart with rapid railgun fire.

Not satisfied with just that, Alice cast various magic she had just stolen to completely burn and break down even the remaining debris.

However, amazingly, Lorraine returned to her original form from that state.

“Kyaaaaaah!”

When Lorraine screamed, a massive tree branch shot out from the World Tree and struck Alice.

While other things could be imitated freely, actual substances that weren’t phenomena caused by magic power were different.

Lorraine pulled out countless branches from the World Tree and frantically swung them at Alice, who couldn’t withstand the overwhelming mass of branches completely filling the space and crashed to the ground.

“Die! Die! Die!”

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Hundreds of massive tree branches moved like tentacles, endlessly pounding where Alice had fallen.

The sight was so overwhelming that even the users who had been fighting stopped to stare blankly.

And Alice, deeply embedded in the ground, looked at the numerous branches falling toward her and fell into thought.

‘She regenerated from debris level to original form. Not just receiving life force, but perfectly unified with the World Tree?’

“Tch, I wanted to surprise Mr. Yuseong.”

Realizing it would be impossible to kill the two of them unless she destroyed the World Tree or Earth’s energy ran out, Alice clicked her tongue briefly.

Since this was her debut battle after completing her body, she had wanted to show an impressive victory, but that seemed impossible now.

‘Winning is practically impossible, so I should at least draw attention.’

Even with the near-infinite magic power of the Dragon Heart and numerous armaments, the size difference was too great.

A human not even 2m tall versus a World Tree reaching the sky.

To draw people’s attention, she would need to show something with impact comparable to the World Tree…

“…Ah.”

At that thought, one skill flashed through Alice’s mind.

The first magic she had ever stolen.

Though it was the most basic of basics compared to the high-level magic she had just stolen, it was perfectly suited for this situation.

Alice closed her eyes and concentrated.

An android body enduring Dragon Heart’s magic power and using that magic power to cast spells were completely different matters.

If a spell cast using all of the Dragon Heart’s magic power failed, she couldn’t even imagine what would happen.

Grrrr.

The moment a faint growl was heard, Alice broke into a bright smile and manifested the magic.

* * *

A massive rumbling shook the earth.

At first, people thought it was just noise and vibrations from the World Tree’s rampage.

But that thought didn’t last long.

The sound grew louder and the vibrations grew more intense.

‘What is this? An earthquake?’

Sensing something strange, Lorraine stopped the World Tree and observed the situation.

And shortly after, an unbelievable sight entered Lorraine’s view.

Rumble!

“…Vines?”

A massive green pillar shot up through the dust.

As Lorraine realized that the pillar growing endlessly toward the sky was a thorny vine and that it was flying toward her, she hurriedly transmitted her will to the World Tree.

“Kuh!”

The impact from the collision between the thorny vine weighing dozens of tons and the World Tree was tremendous.

The ground around where the vine had emerged rippled like waves, and buildings on the unstable ground that had been weakened when the World Tree grew to maturity began to collapse.

“With mere vines like this!”

Countless branches shot out from the World Tree and tightly wrapped around the thorny vine.

Though she was surprised momentarily, it was still child’s play compared to the World Tree.

Just as Lorraine was about to mock her opponent for wasting most of their magic power creating unnecessarily large vines, another massive rumbling sound was heard.

Rumble!

A second thorny vine shot up.

Before she could even grasp what was happening, yet another thorny vine emerged.

Three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty…

Seeing the endlessly emerging thorny vines, Lorraine summoned wind to clear away the dust.

And moments later, the sight that was revealed left not just Lorraine but all users speechless.

“What… is that?”

A massive mass made up of dozens of large vines and tens of thousands of smaller ones.

The sight of countless vines tangling and writhing together stimulated an instinctive revulsion and fear in those watching.

That enormous mass of vines began moving toward the World Tree before people could recover from their shock.

“B-block it!”

Though not comparable to the World Tree, that mass of vines was of considerable size.

Just one vine had created an enormous impact – they could imagine what would happen when a mass of vines that size collided with the World Tree.

‘The ground is already unstable from drawing out too much energy in an area that was unstable to begin with. Though the chance is low, the impact of the collision might even cause an earthquake.’

No, even without an earthquake, she couldn’t let that hideous thing attach itself to the World Tree.

Lorraine hurriedly transmitted her will to the World Tree to block it.

BAM!

Countless branches shot out from the tree reaching the sky, and in response, countless vines shot out from the writhing mass.

From the sky, shells and missiles rained down like rain, while countless beams of light shot up from the ground.

On one side, superhumans who had transcended human limits fought with their lives on the line, while on the other side, a steel giant faced off against zombies and dark elves.

Yuseong shook his head to snap out of his daze while watching this scene that seemed straight out of the apocalypse.

‘Focus. Focus.’

Internal energy, magic power, spirit power.

Magic power exceeding 10,000 points obtained by combining and amplifying the three energies using Infinite Origin Force.

No matter how excellent his energy control ability was, he couldn’t carelessly handle this much energy.

If 10,000 points of magic power went berserk, it would cause an explosion comparable to a nuclear blast.

Yuseong carefully spread the magic power to the maximum range his influence could reach to prevent such a catastrophe.

“Whew.”

Taking a deep breath, Yuseong recalled the moment he had used karma.

The bizarre sight of half a healthy tree dying while half remained alive.

Though that was his first and last time using karma, Yuseong had instinctively understood what kind of power karma was and what abilities it possessed from that single experience.

Everything in the world is bound by the law of causality – cause and effect.

Karma was both the name for this law of causality and the force that maintained it.

‘The law of causality is absolute and unchangeable.’

An object at rest stays at rest unless acted upon by an external force.

A butterfly’s small wing flap can cause a storm.

Where there is a cause, there must be a corresponding effect, and where there is an effect, there must necessarily exist a corresponding cause.

‘But using karma, you can defy the law of causality.’

You can create desired effects without causes, or conversely, change or even eliminate the effects that should follow from causes.

Though strictly speaking it’s different, to put it simply, it could be called “reality manipulation.”

A power similar to reality manipulation that could evolve an ordinary person’s body into a superhuman body capable of destroying buildings with one punch and moving as fast as bullets, and enable crossing dimensional walls to bring knowledge and items from other worlds.

Naturally, karma wasn’t a power that could be easily obtained.

You could only obtain karma by achieving feats that defied causality, accumulating vast experience over long years, or building up karma through taking lives.

You might say you can easily get karma by clearing quests?

‘That’s a kind of exploit.’

It’s impossible for mere mortals to defy the law of causality.

However, if a being from another world not bound by that world’s causality intervenes, things become different.

Just as Yuseong had saved clone who was originally destined to die to the Chimera no matter what, users could achieve feats defying causality by possessing clients and using ideas unthinkable to those bound by that world’s causality or items from other worlds.

As a result, the originally predetermined causality becomes distorted, karma is given to the human who achieved the feat, and the user takes a portion of the karma that the client obtains in the process.

Though it’s an absurd method, it’s a way to obtain large amounts of karma quickly and easily.

‘But this isn’t a situation where I can do quests. I need to gather karma through other methods.’

Woong!

Yuseong looked around with Eye of Truth.

Zombies and dark elves dying in explosions and chaotic battles.

A certain amount of karma appeared the moment they died.

Yuseong reached out toward the numerous masses of light and began controlling magic power.

Karma Operation.

A wind blew through the middle of the fierce battlefield.

A subtle wind almost impossible to feel.

That wind grew stronger, changing from a gentle breeze to a gale, and began guiding the karma released when numerous lives died toward Yuseong.

At the same time, Yuseong checked the third item he had stored in the third slot of Thousand Hands.

<Dragon’s Claw>

-Rank: S

-Type: Weapon

-A claw made by specially processing the claw of Alcid, Lord of the great Red Dragon clan. Though normally too dull to even cut paper, its cutting power increases infinitely according to the magic power input, and it possesses the ability to release accumulated magic power all at once to fire slashes.

-Possesses Flame attribute.

-Automatic durability recovery.

-90% reduction in recovery speed for wounds cut by the claw.

-Cutting power increases with magic power input.

-All stats +350.

-Can use Dimensional Slash skill (Minimum magic power points: 3,000)