The Hero Returns

Act 5

Clang, claaang—!

Gu-wuwuwu—

Swords clashed, and sword slashes landed everywhere.

Ku-ruru, rumble—

The ground overturned, and the grandstands collapsed. Huge waves of flames swept across the battle arena, and the storm of magical energy lashed out to shove away the flames.

Clang, screeeeek—

Crack—!

Chun Ha-jin’s body was roughly shoved back.

He strengthened his leg muscles and barely managed to regain his balance, but it still proved to be inadequate. He was having a hard time understanding just what was going on here right now.

“Dammit!”

Without a doubt, the size of his aura was greater, but in a frontal collision, it would always be him on the losing end.

The reason for that was simple.

“What is up with this ridiculous strength…?” he thought.

Indeed, he was being forced back simply through physical strength alone. However, that only made it so much harder for Chun Ha-jin to understand because all his life, he believed that being weaker in terms of physical strength could always be overcome through the application of the power called “internal force.”

No, wait—that was not the end of the story either.

Piiiht—

Sliiiice—

Chun Ha-jin reflexively swung his sword and was immediately rewarded with the impact force from a sword strike that numbed his hand. He couldn’t even see the speed of the attack.

He realized that his opponent’s power and speed were both far superior to his. Nonetheless, Chun Ha-jin believed that he held the advantage of one thing.

“I must manipulate this fight into a battle of inner strength!”

His power was a result of stealing from tens of thousands of people for the past dozen-plus years. Only by turning this fight into the battle of inner strength did he stand a chance at winning here.

Pounce—!

Chun Ha-jin’s figure shot forward.

He might not be able to keep up in terms of speed, but he was still a martial artist who spent his entire lifetime repeatedly fighting countless life-or-death battles with his sword by his side.

Even if his opponent was faster than him, it would still be possible for him to catch up by determining where the opponent would move to next, especially more so, if he relied on the internal force currently overflowing within him.

[Heaven Murdering Grand Strike]

[Death-Force Absorption—Heavenly Demon Silhouette]

An image of a giant demon suddenly materialized behind Chun Ha-jin. The massive aura sleeping in him erupted at once outside his body and entered his sword before pouncing on Su-hyeun.

Su-hyeun felt as if a massive evil phantom was leading a tsunami wave to pounce on him, but he calmly pointed his sword at it.

“I can see it.”

Shu-wuwu—

Su-hyeun’s vision could clearly pick up the slender gap emitting a soft light amid the gigantic wave of energy, and he found no need to hesitate nor evade at this point. All he had to do was to cut it down.

Clack—

“Slice it apart—”

A lone strand of wind enveloped the sword when Su-hyeun softly whispered.

“Palm Leaf—”

Vroooooph—!

His descending sword unleashed that lone strand of wind and sliced apart the atmosphere. As a result, the tsunami in the image of the evil phantom was instantly split apart to reveal Chun Ha-jin’s stunned figure right behind it.

“Crazy son of a…!”

Chun Ha-jin’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and right at that moment, his sword loudly clashed against Su-hyeun’s own.

CLAAANG—!

Tuu-kwaaaaaahk—

The vestige of magical energy still remaining in the air swept across the surroundings. Meanwhile, the sword strikes couldn’t cut either of the men and were blocked by the walls of energy, utterly devastating the poor arena instead.

Creak, creaaaak—

“I did it!”

In the middle of all this, Chun Ha-jin was smiling faintly.

He no longer lost out in strength, all thanks to him raising his inner force to the absolute max and going on a series of offenses earlier. As long as they were locking swords in this manner, Chun Ha-jin could turn this battle into the fight of inner force, just as he wanted.

Wu-wu-woong—

The inner force entered Chun Ha-jin’s sword.

The power that Su-hyeun knew as “magical energy,” the power and life force stolen from hundreds of thousands of people over many years, focused on one point and began howling out through Chun Ha-jin’s sword.

That magical energy was gradually traveling through Su-hyeun’s sword toward him.

“What are you grinning about?”

Giii-iiiing—

Su-hyeun also proceeded to rouse up his own energy.

The battle of inner force was the name given to a type of battle back in Chun Ha-jin’s former world where duelists locked swords and clashed in a rather straightforward manner by using their inner energies.

“You want to challenge me in a contest of inner force?”

To Chun Ha-jin, this action seemed incomprehensible. He assumed that Su-hyeun wasn’t a dummy, so he should’ve fully realized that his advantage lay with physical strength and agility, yet this? Therefore, Chun Ha-jin was absolutely confident that he would never lose in the battle of inner force.

The corners of Chun Ha-jin’s lips arched up, “Not sure whether you’re brave or stupid, but—”

But right at that moment…

Cough—!

Chun Ha-jin reflexively coughed out without even realizing that he did. A lump of blood came flying out at the same time and landed on Su-hyeun’s chest.

“What the hell…?”

An internal injury?

Su-hyeun’s energy that traveled through his sword and entered Chun Ha-jin’s body proceeded to completely wreck the latter’s inside by blowing up and tearing apart his internal organs.

More blood threatened to gush out of his mouth, but Chun Ha-jin barely managed to suppress that and hurriedly retreated a few steps back. Just as he lowered his sword, his innards tumbled greatly once more.

Bleeeergh!

Drip, tumble—

Lumps of blood and bits of organs spewed out of his mouth.

Chun Ha-jin’s eyes shot open wide in disbelief, and he stared at the blood he had vomited just now. This blood, in its sickly black color, served as ample proof that his innards had been thoroughly damaged by now.

“Having lots of something doesn’t mean a whole lot, now does it? Do you fight while relying only on your big body?”

“What dogsh*t are you…?”

“As a result of you focusing so much on making your power bigger, both your magical concentration and density have become just too insufficient in the end. If you were intending to simply enlarge its size to a ridiculous degree to crush your foes, then too bad for you, that makes it easier for me to deal with you.”

To put it simply, Chun Ha-jin boasted a magical energy reserve with an impressive “count,” but in reality, it was nothing more than half-cooked.

The magical energy of all regular awakeners was split into two categories—the count and the rank.

The rank denoted the magical energy’s density and quality. The higher the rank, the thicker the concentration was, and magical energy boasting greater density could exhibit far better effectiveness and firepower compared to a similar amount of energy reserve.

As for the “count,” it denoted the magical energy reserve’s size. The higher your count was, the more magical energy you possessed, which allowed you to pour out as much as you want for a longer period of time.

Not to mention…

“Besides, having something that big only makes it so much harder to control, you know?”

The magical energy reserve that had been enlarged to such a degree was actually far harder to control.

Your technique had to be quite good if you wanted to control magical energy properly. You were trying to wield a power invisible to naked eyes, so unsurprisingly, the degree of difficulty in controlling it was far higher than moving your arms or legs.

As such, the rank and count went hand in hand, and taking a shortcut of forcibly increasing only the magical energy reserve would more often than not turn into poison that bit you back in the end.

Even if you succeeded in enlarging your reserve, your magical energy would only become that much harder to properly control.

“It would’ve been fine while bullying the weaker opponents. I’m guessing that it probably got easier and easier for you to crush the smaller and weaker guys as your reserve grew bigger, am I wrong? And that also made you mistakenly think that you’ve become incredibly strong, too.”

Pow—!

Craaack—

Keok…

“Isn’t it so?”

Su-hyeun’s fist rapped on Chun Ha-jin’s abdomen. Along with the sounds of rib bones breaking to bits, the latter’s body bent forward in agony.

He tried so hard not to collapse, but there was nothing he could do about his buckling knees. While clutching at his abdomen, Chun Ha-jin’s eyes shot open so fast that his facial skin was torn.

“You’re hurting only from this much? That won’t do.”

Shu-wuwu—

Su-hyeun’s hand reached out toward Chun Ha-jin’s head, and right at that moment, murky magical energy which color changed to black entered Chun Ha-jin’s skull and spread throughout his body.

[The Curse of the Dark Psychic—Pain]

Kkeuh, kkeuhhh…!

Sounds made when holding back a scream leaked out from Chun Ha-jin’s mouth.

Although Su-hyeun didn’t use this skill all that much, he used it this time, so its power was double what it normally should be.

The Curse of the Dark Psychic wasn’t a very special skill, but it could be quite useful depending on how it was utilized.

A skill that belonged to the school of dark magic, it was normally used as a means of torture to dig out information, and Su-hyeun had used it a few times for that purpose as well.

Of course, today would be an exception.

Squeeeeze—

Cruuunch—

Kkeuhhhh…

Chun Ha-jin swallowed back yet another scream.

He possessed a commendable mental strength that he endured against the pain of his shoulders breaking apart, as well as his bones and flesh being crushed and shredded to bits. Despite his pain worsening by dozens, hundreds of times through the effects of the Curse of the Dark Psychic, he didn’t scream once. That must’ve been the last vestige of his pride.

“If that’s what you want, then endure as much as you can.”

Stab, staaab—

“…!”

“I won’t stop until you scream out loud, anyway.”

Su-hyeun’s sword began piercing holes on Chun Ha-jin’s body one stab at a time.

* * *

Aaaaaaaahk—!

A loud scream reverberated throughout the arena, and on top of this completely destroyed and overturned arena was a half-dying man coated in blood currently collapsed on the ground.

Kkeuh…Kkuh-uhhh…

“You sure held on for a while.”

Thirty minutes, that was how long Chun Ha-jin managed to withstand the barrage of pain.

It didn’t seem like a long time to other people who weren’t doing anything, but to Chun Ha-jin enduring the unimaginable pain, those 30 minutes would have felt even longer than the entirety of his life that he lived up until that moment.

Su-hyeun was also aware of this, so he couldn’t help but praise Chun Ha-jin’s mental strength at least.

“Still not planning to show up, I see,” Su-hyeun muttered softly before raising his head.

The response was coming later than he expected. He quietly tutted before lowering himself to match Chun Ha-jin’s eyeline.

The fear of death existed equally in everyone.

One might be able to steel oneself at the prospect of sudden death, but they would still feel so much fear when the unavoidable death crept ever so slowly toward them, especially more so when death was accompanied by a truly horrifying pain.

By the moment he let out a scream, Chun Ha-jin’s mind had already been broken.

“Should I tell you a way that might let you live?”

“A way…to live…”

“That’s right. Of course, it won’t be me sparing you but someone coming to save you. Who knows? Just like some kind of a lie, a worse villain than you might show up to save you,” Su-hyeun said while raising his head again to look up.

Unlike the situation below, the sky up there remained clear and crystal blue. The current state of the weather hadn’t changed for a long time, remaining still and tranquil.

But right at that moment…

Rumbleeee—

Gloomy clouds that hadn’t shown up in a long while began spreading thickly in the sky.

“So, it finally came,” Su-hyeun thought.

His provocation had worked.

The annoying prospect of searching around for his target was gone now. Although his assumption of the emperor being the predator was wrong, the two of them still had some kind of connection.

The final goal of this trial was to find the predator and kill that thing to bring about an end to this damnable game and the world itself.

“Well, what a noisy entrance that is,” Su-hyeun muttered while staring at the sky that was gradually getting darker before looking back at Chun Ha-jin. “Hey, it looks like your savior is coming, after all.”

Shu-wuwuwu—

A massive amount of magical energy swirled crazily within the clouds and began concentrating on one spot.

Su-hyeun’s lips distorted into a smirk. This reaction of his was several times more cheerful compared to when he ran into Chun Ha-jin earlier.

“A villain worse than you.”

Euh… Kkeuh-euh…

Chun Ha-jin groaned in pain and shifted his gaze around.

He was still bathed in blood, and his vision had been dyed in crimson, making it impossible for him to see anything well. However, he could still instinctively tell that something gigantic was approaching them right now.

Buzz, numb—

This fear was different from what he felt from Su-hyeun.

If Su-hyeun’s sense of presence was shockingly dense yet surprisingly compact to detect properly, then that unknown thing approaching them gave off a far crueler and more sinister vibe.

Su-hyeun looked behind him. “You’re finally here?”

The black fog that had inconspicuously descended to the ground was slowly taking on a solid shape.