105(1) – Zenyo! (I)

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PART 1 – New Mission!

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On a vast, icy plain, two figures advance: a tall woman with white skin and brown hair, followed by a halfling with pointed ears.

“Seriously, Skarla, we’re alone. Why disguise ourselves?” – The halfling grunts, annoyed as he shifts, hating his disguise.

Skarla in a new disguise, wearing tight leather clothing and concealing much of her body. She is an entirely different person, but equally powerful.

“Zenyo, we wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t gotten the coordinates wrong.” – Skarla growls. – “And my name is now Verna, get used to it, we can’t mess up our disguises.”

“But you are literally the most powerful mortal in existence. Not even the gods act against you. Why disguise yourself? Isn’t it just a 5-minute flight and that’s it? We find the person and goodbye curse?”

Skarla sighs and rubs her temple. – “Zenyo… I am the most infamous person in existence, my name inspires fear in nations, demigods, and now even gods. Do you think the person capable of undoing your curse and returning your body to its natural state would be just a nobody without allies?”

“The moment I step into this world in my appearance, without hiding my power, all the demigods will be alerted, the gods who have feet in this world through countless churches will pay attention to me. Finally, they can hide the person capable of healing them, and my enemies, whom we know to be numerous, upon learning of my objective, might decide to kill them, just to my frustration.”

“Indeed, I can investigate the world in hours, beat up a bunch of weaklings, and presto, get the desired information. But remember that this is a world of a higher level; besides gods being able to partially descend and unleash divine punishments as if distributing candy at a children's party, we have the so-called Transcendents.” – Skarla growled slightly and sighed.

Six days ago, Zenyo came to Skarla to talk about someone who could heal his body and undo the curse. His curse is so deeply rooted in his essence, both physically and spiritually, that it has become a part of him, making it impossible to undo, not even the one who cast it can. Yes, they've already tried.

So the discovery of someone with a Special Ability capable of undoing any curse became Zenyo's hope. So they went to that specific world five days ago.

Skarla took Zenyo to contact allies in that world, because even though it was sealed, Skarla still maintained coordinates and has many allies in that world.

The problem is that Zenyo's information wasn't accurate. The person does exist, but they weren't from that world. The person in question is a powerful Demigod Mage from a Greater World.

The term "Greater World" refers to a world that had the capacity to create layers, as is the case with the current Murim, but did not. Instead, it only grew, creating what we can call Supercontinents, increasing the power scale of those who can live there and drastically reducing restrictions on the strongest.

Generally, they are in such a powerful world that Gods can descend and live among mortals with various limitations, while Demigods can kill mortals without major penalties. Finally, and most worryingly, there are Transcendent beings, individuals who, instead of ascending to the status of God, followed another path, intimate with mortality, but still immortal.

One could say that the Transcendent beings are "Almost Gods," with the power to kill gods.

And now, after obtaining information that the person Zenyo needs is a Demigoddess from a Greater World, indirectly affected by their damage to Paradise—as the Void Beasts used the corruption of deities to affect their believers, causing much chaos and destruction for years, resulting in the birth of various Cults, a new global danger—they've discovered that Skarla, even though she is the strongest being below divinity, capable of becoming ridiculously stronger with a gesture and reaching Level 50 in the blink of an eye, still has beings capable of killing gods in this world, something she doubts she is capable of.

Therefore, she prefers not to reveal her identity and become a target.

That's why her identity is Verna, a barbarian. Naturally, she didn't originally have this appearance; she had another. But a few hours ago, they crossed a portal.

From where they fell, in this vast icy plain, there was a group of mercenaries. Skarla went to them to ask for information. But when I approached them as a young Black woman, they didn't ask questions and just attacked.

After dealing with them and asking questions, it was discovered that Black people are considered evil. But this is due to ancient stories about a powerful empire that considered itself the superior race, ruled by men and women with dark skin.

It was a powerful empire with mad rulers, using random rhetoric to inflate the superiority of their people in order to wage war against the world, treating everyone else like animals.

In the end, they lost miserably. They may have been powerful, but they were trying to wage war against the entire world. Demigods didn't stand idly by and acted, so Black people were enslaved or exiled to the most arid areas of the world.

If a Black person is seen, hatred and prejudice automatically manifest. This was over 2,000 years ago; only the strongest are still alive, but the hatred and prejudice remain.

It shows how actions and focus on specific aspects or symbols can destroy the symbolism behind them. This made Skarla remember Earth, more specifically the swastika. A symbol used by Nazis, gaining infamy and considerable fear, which later became repudiated in the West, both the symbol and the leader's mustache.

But the swastika in the East has a very different and profound meaning, nothing related to evil; in fact, it's a Buddhist symbol. Skarla encountered it in her past life in Murim, and many Buddhist monks use the swastika.

For the East, it's a good symbol; for the West, it's a symbol with a lot of negative history.

And in this world, the actions of one of the most powerful nations instilled a negative stigma in a people, simply because they had dark skin. Skarla is certain that after 2,000 years, most of the hatred should have dissipated.

But it's certain that the powerful who have been alive since then have kept the hatred alive. But Skarla doubts it's the work of demigods; they wouldn't interact so much with mortals. The Legends? It might be true, but they wouldn't live that long; only Elves and races with great longevity would.

But from your general knowledge of elves, if they aren't a race of nymphomaniac harlots like in your world, which is the case in most worlds, then elves are an extremely arrogant and purist race, who exalt beauty and civility, abhorring filth, ugliness, and brutality.

Generally, this is the most common representation of elves in Earth's fantasy books.

And as seems to be the case in this world. Skarla doubts that they, who normally have prejudice against all races, seeing themselves as superior beings and having almost unlimited power and knowledge to sustain their mentality and voice, could maintain the entire world's prejudice against them, especially in the North, a land of barbarians who only recognize strength.

Which means the Gods are to blame. The empire likely greatly angered the divine beings, who, in their hatred, not only annihilated them but also spared no one else, even future generations, condemning all those with a similar skin color.

Skarla scornfully mocks this world, but she needs to fit in, so she uses her transformation technique. Before, she followed the laws of physics, unable to condense her mass and increase her density.

She needed to store this excess mass when trying to reduce her body size, hence she used space accessories to contain the excess mass.

But since then, Skarla has changed a lot. Having studied transformation magic, she even studied the races of shapeshifting monsters and demons, understanding the essence of transformation and implementing it in her martial arts.

Thus, she develops an ability that wasn't added to her stats, but created a Proficiency: Unlimited Form Technique.

With this technique, she can take any form she wants, practically without limitations. But that's in relation to decreasing; to grow beyond your body mass, the limit is 50%.

And so, Verna, standing at 1.94 meters tall, was born, with white skin, long brown hair, brown eyes, and a broad physique, large breasts and buttocks. A strong beauty, something worthy of a hero.

As for Zenyo, he has now become a Halfling, where Skarla only changed his skin tone. Due to his Metamorphosis, Zenyo became a few centimeters taller, so he is naturally larger than normal Halflings, which is why his ears remain pointed, indicating he is a hybrid.

Zenyo's discomfort stems from the fact that he has to sustain the technique. He didn't learn it; Skarla molded him and gave him control. Now he needs to sustain it, which isn't difficult, but it's uncomfortable and takes time to adapt.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, her technique also has energy-disguising functions. As a result, Skarla is able to disguise her vitality and mana, preventing her from being recognized.

Consequently, the powerful will recognize her as a Legendary-Level barbarian beauty. Unlike her, who can accurately analyze someone's power, the people of this universe have few methods to understand someone's danger, going by level alone.

So, a Legend is a Legend in the general sense.

Whatever the case, Skarla kicked Zenyo in the butt. – “Remember, I'm Verna and you're Zenyo!”

“Okay… how did you kick me in the butt?” – Zenyo asked, especially since Skarla was in front of him, then another kick hit him.

“I can literally melt all the snow in this region, do you think kicking you in the butt is a challenge?” – Skarla taunted.

(Author's note: I'm sad because, given Skarla's ignorance of pop culture, I missed the chance to use a famous waifu's likeness.)