Chapter 104
The Fist Emperor was knocked away with a single blow.
Meanwhile, the unknown Korean Hunter appeared to have taken no damage at all.
Of course, he'd made a name for himself in Korea in the past...
“At least if it had been Zephyros, maybe...”
Zephyros was famous even in China.
The prevailing opinion was that even if he hadn't reached the rank of the Five Emperors, he was at least on the level of a King (王), just below them.
But...
An entirely unexpected figure had appeared and overwhelmed the Fist Emperor.
“It's not over yet...”
The Fist Emperor got up with his face covered in blood, swaying as he growled.
“I'll kill you...”
The Fist Emperor charged in an instant and unleashed a flurry of punches so fast they were barely visible.
Choi Kang didn't even try to block them. He simply took the blows.
Just as the Fist Emperor's strength began to fade from his continuous attacks...
The corners of Choi Kang's mouth curled up.
“Tired already?”
The Fist Emperor didn't know Korean, but he seemed to understand what those words meant.
The vajra Choi Kang slowly raised was crackling with bright yellow lightning.
The vajra struck him squarely in the chest.
That single blow was all it took.
The Fist Emperor collapsed, his eyes rolled back until only the whites showed.
Whether his heart had stopped or not, he barely moved except for occasional twitches.
“D-did he die?”
Even if they had proposed a fight to the death...
On their own side...
Perhaps they hadn't expected one of their men to die so easily, because the Saber Emperor's voice trembled.
But...
Choi Kang walked steadily toward the fallen Fist Emperor.
Lightning once again wrapped around his fist.
“What are you doing to someone who's already down!”
“Does that man have no honor at all!”
The Chinese side shouted in outrage.
The Saber Emperor also moved forward angrily, but the Sword Emperor stopped him.
Meanwhile, Choi Kang simply walked up to the Fist Emperor and...
sent a jolt of lightning into his chest.
KABOOM! After several powerful jolts...
The Fist Emperor twitched, then let out a choked gasp and drew a breath as he sat up.
He looked around in confusion, then saw everyone's reactions, sighed, and lay back down.
“I lost... and...”
His breath had definitely stopped.
And the one who brought him back was...
“That man?”
To be saved by an enemy...
The Fist Emperor's face flushed with immense shame as a martial artist.
But the duel had been fair(?).
Struggling to his feet, the Fist Emperor slowly walked up to Choi Kang and held out his hand.
“... A handshake?”
The two shook hands.
Then the Fist Emperor brought his hands together in a martial salute.
“I will never forget the debt I owe you for saving my life.”
The duel had been fair.
Even if they'd let him die, no one could have blamed them.
What favor in this world could be greater than saving someone's life?
The defeated Fist Emperor's face darkened as he carried a tremendous burden.
“... I apologize.”
“Leave the revenge to me.”
The Saber Emperor strode forward and drew his saber.
There wasn't the slightest hint of carelessness on his face.
“... Um, I feel a little bad.”
Seeing the Fist Emperor knocked away made me feel a bit sorry for him.
Layered armor that used a cellulose structure was practically the worst possible matchup for an impact-type fighter like the Fist Emperor.
It distributed the force of each blow throughout the body.
It wouldn't have been nearly as powerful against the Sword Emperor or Saber Emperor, who focused on cutting a single point.
Unlike me, who knew the reason, Zephyros and Lee Seong-hyeok seemed so dumbfounded that they rubbed their eyes.
“W-was he always that tough?”
“I-I couldn't say.”
The Fist Emperor's punches hadn't been weak at all.
The two of them had seen it with their own eyes, so they knew their opponent hadn't been weak.
It was just that...
Choi Kang hadn't taken much damage at all.
Even Choi Kang himself came back with a puzzled look.
“He wasn't a wet noodle...”
“You look fine. Since it's a winner-stays-on series, you could go out next.”
At Zephyros's words, Choi Kang nodded, lightning crackling around him.
“Of course! I'll go!”
“No.”
Obviously, I had to stop him.
If he went out with that much confidence, he might get caught off guard by a slash attack that had the advantage against him.
Besides, just look at that Saber Emperor's face.
He was gritting his teeth hard enough to crack them.
“Let's stick to the plan. Mr. Ryu, you should go.”
Choi Kang was about to object, but met my gaze and backed down.
“Ugh, fine.”
And so, the duel with the Saber Emperor...
Ended anticlimactically when Mr. Ryu broke the Saber Emperor's saber in two in just five exchanges.
Did I do anything for him?
No. I didn't have a suitable buff this time, so I only gave him the same one I'd used on Senior Choi Kang, even if it wasn't efficient.
Even that was pointless, since he hadn't taken a single hit.
What the hell...
When did this guy become such a monster?
Zephyros Ryu Hyeonsu.
How many times had he sparred with Kim Segyun?
He'd stopped counting once they passed ten...
But it was probably more than a hundred.
From the rookie Kim Segyun...
to the Kim Segyun who had recently started turning into a monster.
And through his fights with Kim Segyun, Zephyros had come to realize one thing.
He could no longer beat that monster.
Still, if he wanted to be even a worthy opponent in a one-on-one fight...
If he wanted their sparring matches to be more than a one-sided, boring affair...
What he needed most was greater aura density.
He still didn't know exactly what kind of ability Kim Segyun possessed.
But one thing was certain: countless tiny beings were biting into his aura.
They rapidly wore down its durability, eventually making it impossible to maintain and causing it to shatter.
At first, it had been closer to Kim Segyun breaking through his sturdy aura, but now...
‘I'm the one trying to withstand that bastard Kim Segyun's attacks.’
Kim Segyun's attacks had suddenly grown stronger one day.
It had been around the same time he'd started doing ridiculous things like brewing alcohol.
Since then, Ryu Hyeonsu hadn't won a single sparring match against Kim Segyun.
Far from winning, at first his sword's aura would break before he could last even three seconds.
It had been shocking.
After that, he made the durability and density of his aura his top priorities.
He still couldn't beat Kim Segyun, but...
Now he could withstand Kim Segyun's attacks for more than three minutes without his aura going out.
Three seconds to three minutes.
Until now, there had been almost no way to feel that direct improvement outside of sparring with Kim Segyun.
An aura dense enough to last three seconds...
and an aura that could last three minutes...
Either way, there wasn't much difference in attack power.
But...
Right now, Ryu Hyeonsu could clearly feel the difference after just one exchange with the Saber Emperor.
“What is this...?”
After exchanging a single blow, the Saber Emperor stepped back several paces and muttered in a trembling voice.
His reaction felt oddly familiar.
‘He's reacting exactly like I did when I first sparred with Kim Segyun after that brat suddenly got stronger.’
Until a few days ago, he could have held out for several minutes.
Who could understand the feeling of your aura being worn down in an instant, losing its ability to hold together, and breaking in just three seconds?
‘Well, not many people focus on strengthening their aura itself.’
No, hardly anyone even knew they could strengthen their aura to improve its durability.
An aura rarely broke.
Even when auras clashed, the outcome was often decided by the advantages and disadvantages of their sword or saber techniques before either aura went out.
If your opponent was a strong fighter on your level, trying to break their aura was something only a fool would do.
A blow strong enough to break their aura would break yours, too.
The result would be the same either way.
But after focusing on strengthening his aura so he could endure Kim Segyun's attacks...
The Saber Emperor's aura—his force—had been reduced to tatters by a single blow.
The Saber Emperor's force wavered so badly that it could hardly be called an aura anymore.
He poured more internal energy into it and tried to steady his force, but his spirit had already been broken.
It showed in the altered opening stance of his saber technique, too.
“... Are you trying to deflect it?”
The Saber Emperor had realized his aura couldn't withstand a head-on clash.
He'd given up on meeting force with force.
The problem was...
“Isn't that a saber, not a sword? Why imitate sword techniques with a saber?”
It was an outrageous thing to say as a swordsman.
That kind of move suited a double-edged sword, not a saber. Saber techniques weren't like that.
Saber techniques meant pressing forward with a force that could split a mountain.
That was the way of the saber.
Against a saber-wielder who had been completely cowed and lost sight of the essence of his weapon...
The outcome seemed to have been decided in a single exchange.
Zephyros smiled bitterly, rushed forward in an instant, and unleashed a flurry of attacks.
KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM! KABOOM!
At the end of the four attacks, each accompanied by a blast like an exploding bomb...
His sword completely shattered the Saber Emperor's force and broke his saber in two.
The Saber Emperor stared in shock at his broken weapon and tried to retreat, but...
Ryu Hyeonsu's sword was already at his throat.
“I-I yield.”
The Five Emperors of the Continent (大陸五皇).
Although the title had been established according to China's own internal assessments, without much exchange with the outside world, the Chinese claimed the Five Emperors were a level above even the strongest Hunters of other countries.
And they had reason to boast: each of them was among the top five Hunters in a population of 1.3 billion.
But...
Two of the Five Emperors had been defeated in an instant by just two Hunters from a small country of barely fifty million people.
And they had been utterly defeated.
The Chinese side had been paying attention to no one but Kim Segyun, but their shock was so great that even the Korean Hunters could feel it.
“No, why are these fights ending so fast?”
When I asked Zephyros after he returned from his duel with the Saber Emperor, he only shrugged.
“It was a good matchup.”
Unlike swordsmanship, saber techniques tended to focus on clashes of force. That played to Zephyros's advantage since he had trained mainly to increase his aura density.
“Now that they've seen this, the Sword Emperor won't try to take me on with brute force.”
“His class is Myriad Sword User (萬劍者), right?”
The Myriad Sword User class.
It was the most broken class among sword-user classes.
The class placed no restrictions on learning any type of swordsmanship.
That made the Sword Emperor the man who knew the most sword techniques in China.
He had also learned every incredibly rare sword-skill book he could get his hands on.
He was even thought to have learned more relic-grade sword skills than anyone else in the world.
There was a reason he was China's strongest.
“Yeah. If the Sword Emperor had gone first, we could've caught him off guard and pressed our advantage, but... it'll be hard to make proper use of it now.”
Simply put...
The Sword Emperor wasn't someone you could beat with a single ‘click.’
“I can take him.”
“No, I'll try. Even if I lose, I won't make it easy for him.”
If Zephyros could inflict enough damage before losing, even the Sword Emperor wouldn't dare come out to face Lee Seong-hyeok next.
Then Lee Seong-hyeok could take on the remaining two and win. That would be the end of it.
Still...
I'd rather the teacher win, if possible.
There had to be some way.
Just as I was thinking that...
─ S l o t h.
Greed's sudden words jolted me to attention.
What? Sloth?
─ W i t h . t h a t . o n e ' s . p o w e r . i t ' s . p o s s i b l e.
Another individual?
But where was I supposed to get Sloth right now?
─ I m i t a t o r.
Imitator... did it mean Pride?
─ Y e s.
Pride couldn't imitate an existence of the same rank, though.
─ S i m i l a r . t o . G l u t t o n y.
What did that mean?
... Ah!
Unlike Greed and Pride...
Gluttony had been an original individual that evolved after receiving the power of a god.
So an individual called Sloth...
“A base individual changes after receiving the power of a god.”
Then maybe Sloth itself could be surprisingly easy to obtain?
All I had to do was feed Nectar to an individual of a lower rank...
─ S t u p i d . m a s t e r.
What now!
─ G l u t t o n y . c a n . e a t . t h a t . b u t . o t h e r . i n d i v i d u a l s . c a n ' t.
Huh?
Now that I thought about it, that made sense.
Soaking an individual in Nectar didn't make all of them evolve into something like Gluttony.
It just made them stronger than ordinary individuals.
Gluttony itself was ‘Gluttony.’
In other words, it must have been an individual that had evolved after its original form ‘ate’ Nectar.
So I'd have to find another way...
No, that wasn't the urgent problem right now.
Greed, did you happen to know the original individual for Sloth?
─ I . k n o w . I ' l l . t e l l . t h e . I m i t a t o r.
Let's bring Pride out.
Greed drew out very thin tendrils and drove them into the Pride individual.
In an instant, Greed's information was passed to Pride...
and Pride began to transform.
[Individual, ‘Pride,’ transforms into ‘Chronobacter Cerebralis.’]
[Pride (currently mimicking Chronobacter Cerebralis)]
─ Description: An individual of Pride mimicking Chronobacter Cerebralis, a bacterium from the Age of the Gods. It is said to infiltrate and affect the brain's time center. According to legend, if it gains the power of Chronos, the god of time, it can interfere with actual time.
─ Ability: Can manipulate the target's internal time center by up to a maximum multiplier of 10 (base multiplier of 5, with control applied).