Don’t Die Just Like That

"So, you used this ring, turned into a soul, ran to some place incredibly far from here, nearly stabbed Sauron full of holes, rescued Gandalf and Thrain while you were at it, and then acted all mysterious and told them to hurry over here?"

"That was more or less it."

Josh shrugged in agreement. He was not surprised that Akathosh had described everything he had done with such uncanny accuracy.

Besides, that was exactly what he had done, so there was nothing strange about it. What he had not expected was that after entering that bizarre space, his body had remained where it was.

How should he put it? At the time, Josh had looked as though he were meditating. He had been breathing normally, showing normal physiological signs, and even when Josh used magic power, it could be clearly sensed here.

But by then, Josh’s consciousness—or rather, his soul—had long since left this place.

The experience was somewhat like the soul leaving the body in Eastern novels, and the thing that had allowed Josh to do all this was obviously the ring.

Fortunately, Josh had been incredibly lucky. He had not needed to worry about being unable to return. After he finished acting mysterious in front of Gandalf and the others, he could feel himself being pulled back toward his body.

Returning to his body was very simple: he only needed to take off The One Ring from his finger!

That put Josh at ease. Who knew how far he had flown? In any case, Josh, who had no sense of direction, had no idea where his soul had ended up.

At the time, he had even worried that he would have to do a real-life corpse run like in World of Warcraft!

Thankfully, when he yanked off the ring, he found himself back atop Lonely Mountain. Everything that had happened before felt like a dream.

But Josh did not think he could have dreamed something like that. Especially not such a dream—everything that had happened was still vivid in his mind.

After briefly explaining everything to Natasha and the others, Josh began searching for the information he had intercepted from the ring’s hidden rules.

However, once that information entered his mind, Josh discovered that it was all made up of rule-lines constructed from magic. Like a spiderweb, it was extraordinarily intricate, and every key node was covered in various spell-like encryptions.

Josh gave it one look and gave up, because the thing was completely beyond anything he had imagined.

Simply put, to understand it, one either needed sufficient strength or a soul that had reached a certain level before they could grasp how those rules operated and what they did. Josh could not do that yet.

Josh could not do it, but someone beside him might be able to. After thinking for a moment, Josh directly spoke to the fellow standing on his shoulder. "Akathosh, there’s something you might need to take a look at."

"What is it? Where is it? Let me see."

Akathosh did not put on airs with Josh. Once he learned that the information was in Josh’s mind, he immediately closed his eyes and began searching for it.

But before long, his expression became exceptionally strange. Then he blankly raised his head to look at Josh, as if he had seen a ghost.

"What kind of look is that?"

"Forget my expression. Tell me, where did you get this information?"

"I intercepted it from this ring. It was well-hidden, but I still found it, then memorized it. So, what exactly is it?"

"This is the operating law of this world!"

"???"

Akathosh practically shouted it at Josh, while Josh stood there with a completely dumbfounded expression.

The operating law of a world was hidden inside a ring? Or rather, this ring contained the operating law of a world?

Those two statements sounded similar, but their implications were entirely different.

If it was the first, it could only mean that Sauron, the ring’s creator, was absurdly powerful. He had placed the world’s laws inside the ring—what an utterly invincible move!

But Josh, who had fought Sauron before, knew perfectly well that was impossible.

At his peak, Sauron had only been Sixth Tier. Now, with his soul weakened, he was merely around the peak of Fifth Tier. Josh did not believe someone like that could forge such a terrifying thing!

The world’s limit might be low, but there was no way its laws could be discovered by someone who had not even touched that limit!

Even those with roughly equal strength might not necessarily discover a world’s laws. If just anyone could find them, then this world would have been finished long ago!

That left only the second explanation for why the ring contained the world’s laws: the laws had likely entered it on their own!

Josh did not know what to say about that. He had already gathered a great deal of information from the knowledge stored in Akathosh’s mind.

He had collected that information to make his future path easier and smoother, so he understood quite a bit about world laws.

Josh did not believe that The One Ring containing information about the world’s laws was some coincidence. There had to be something here that he did not know.

"Have you found the answer?"

"Come on, how long have I been looking at this information? And understanding the laws of a world requires analyzing the entire world’s development, all right? Even if you found me such a clear diagram of how the rules operate, I’m only Sixth Tier right now. I need time to simulate it, then combine it with this world’s history to find the answer."

"So you don’t know either? Tsk, tsk. And here I thought you were the Wing of the World. Is that all you’ve got?"

"If you can do it, then do it. If you can’t, shut up. Can you even find a single information node, idiot?"

Fine. Josh decisively stopped talking.

He truly did not have that ability, so all he could do was mock him verbally. Josh had originally thought Akathosh would use the chance to keep firing back, but to his surprise, the guy actually took the initiative to return to his silver rune. He seemed extremely focused on deciphering the world’s laws.

Josh shrugged. He was looking forward to it, but for some reason, he always felt that discovering this world’s laws might not be such a good thing.

This world was far too strange. Wizards did not like using magic, and Sauron had died and come back to life countless times. All of it felt strange to Josh.

Shaking his head, Josh could not be bothered to think about those questions anymore.

After using The One Ring, Josh realized that time seemed to have passed rather quickly. He had arrived at this damned place in the afternoon, but it was already dark!

That made Josh rub his head. Honestly, time had passed ridiculously fast.

With a casual use of Earth element magic, he created several stone houses capable of blocking wind and rain. Then he used Wind element magic to sweep over all the dead branches and leaves nearby, before finally setting them alight with Fire element magic. A simple resting camp was built just like that.

Magic truly was incredibly convenient, which was why Josh had always advocated using magic to make life more convenient.

Unfortunately, progress in that area on the Muya Continent was not easy. The idea of magic as a weapon of war was deeply ingrained in people’s minds, and mages had all become unbearably arrogant because of it.

Of course, Josh was not someone afraid of trouble. Even if it was difficult, he believed that as time passed, his ideas would eventually take root in everyone’s hearts—Josh’s ideals.

As long as Josh’s territory continued to develop better and better, everyone would naturally accept those ideas.

"Still, this feeling of existing in the gap between life and death is really interesting. It’s like being a god—hiding yourself as you watch the world, crossing a thousand miles with a single thought, then launching a spirit-body attack with another thought whenever you meet an enemy you want to kill. Tsk, tsk."

Garen’s expression became very strange when he heard Josh’s nonsense. "Why do I feel like what you’re describing sounds a lot like a sword technique?"

"What?"

"Uh… Sword Twenty-Three?"

"…"

Josh rubbed his brow in frustration. Thinking about it, there really was some resemblance. But Josh remembered that the fellow who used Sword Twenty-Three did not seem to end well, did he? To put it simply, he died a particularly miserable death—terrifying and ugly besides.

"Um, you guys didn’t touch my body earlier, right?"

"No."

"That’s good. If I ever develop a move like that in the future, remember to be careful too. Don’t touch my body, all right?"

"Don’t worry. I know."

Shaking his head, Josh stopped thinking about those awkward and headache-inducing matters. He was now considering how he had nearly stabbed Sauron full of holes earlier.

Josh had not used his full strength against Sauron, but he had not expected Sauron to be so fragile. Josh had only used Void Walking and Void Blade.

Yet the actual effects of those two spells seemed to have exceeded Josh’s expectations. Void Walking had been fine—it had merely shattered the black veil protecting Sauron in an instant. But Void Blade had not only pierced Sauron’s defenses, it had directly injured his soul!

Josh had always known that Void Power possessed devouring abilities and could affect souls. He remembered using Void Blade once against Voldemort many years ago, and that attack had annihilated Voldemort’s soul as well.

Josh had assumed that it was especially effective against low-level enemies and those with weak souls. But now it seemed that against anyone at Josh’s level or below, it was extraordinarily effective—so effective that even Josh clicked his tongue in amazement.

He had clearly not used much force, yet Thorin had howled endlessly, and a visible chunk of his soul had disappeared.

The power was so great that Josh was even worried he might have stabbed the guy to death just like that. That would not be fun at all!

"Don’t just die like that. Otherwise, sixty years from now, there really won’t be any Fellowship of the Ring. And who knows when that unkillable Roach will crawl back up again? That would be annoying as hell."