Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Irreconcilable
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The interior of the indoor training hall in Han Moo-young's building was vast, befitting the scale of everything else there.
The gathered students were busy warming up and reviewing their strategies.
From a quick scout, Group 2 had more people than us and seemed to have split into separate teams within their group.
It wasn't a bad choice if the whole group couldn't move as one. Charging in without a plan would just get them tangled up with each other.
'Well, I don't think it'll be an effective strategy against Lee Soo-young, but...'
That was for those guys to learn the hard way.
We just needed to focus on our part.
I gathered my team members for one last pep talk.
"It's just the midterm evaluation today, but no need to drag it out. Let's win clean and coast through the rest of the semester. Everyone agree?"
"Yeah."
"Right! Let's do this!"
"Warm up properly. Unless you want to get taken out by a single punch with a cold body."
Park Jong-myeong was the only one who bothered to respond properly.
I clicked my tongue and did a final check on my weapons. Longsword and shortsword. Both sharpened to a razor's edge. Whether they could pierce Aura Shield at the Peak Realm was another matter, but I'd done all I could prepare.
But even after the class bell rang, Lee Soo-young still hadn't shown up.
"Teacher Soo-young is late..."
"Why hasn't she come? It's class time. Something wrong?"
"Who knows..."
It was the first time the ever-punctual Lee Soo-young, always earlier than the students, was late. Murmurs spread among the students.
Then Son Ha-rin, who had been with Group 2's students, suddenly snapped her head up.
It was a rare sharp reaction from her, who usually seemed a bit dim outside of combat and moved slowly.
The moment I sensed something off and moved toward her—
Tzzzzzt—
I felt an ominous anomaly on my skin too. No presences from outside the training hall. As if it were sealed by some special barrier.
But for external presences to cut off so suddenly like this left only two possibilities.
A qi barrier cast over the entire building by a martial artist with immense inner power. Or... a barrier erected by a mage who had reached a profound realm.
A thought flashed through my mind.
A certain group famous for mastery in both martial arts and sorcery came to mind. More personally, the ones directly responsible for my death—
"—Demonic Cult?"
Crack. No sooner had I spoken than a pitch-black rift sliced across the air.
With a bizarre tearing sound, the rift in the air yawned open like a living maw. A group of people stepped out from beyond.
They shared an obvious trait at a glance. From head to toe, their robes were jet black. Every one wore black robes and masks concealing their faces.
If asked whether they were righteous or demonic path, the answer was obvious: demonic path.
More precisely, denizens of the demonic way. Their blatantly radiating demonic energy made it clear; they weren't even hiding it.
"This is... demonic qi...! Demon Cultists!"
"Everyone, grab your swords!"
The students quickly grasped the situation and shouted, assuming combat stances.
But the lead Demon Cultist among the dozen or so, radiating the mightiest aura, slowly raised a hand and spoke.
"Do not rashly hasten your deaths. I have no desire to sully my dignity with the blood of worthless whelps."
His tone was absurdly arrogant, looking down on everyone present as inferior beings.
Yet his arrogance was well-founded.
No matter that it stemmed from sinister demonic arts, he had ascended to superhuman ranks.
He was on a different level of existence from the students.
"They say more vessels are always better, but I disagree. No need to take trash when we have the finest prize."
His face was hidden deep within the black robe, making his demonic-amplified voice all the more eerie and bizarre.
"I know the Wind Duke and Moonlight Sword Queen's bloodkin... the girl Son Ha-rin, is here. Hand her over. Then I shall do no harm to any of you. The Third Apostle of the Divine Cult stakes his name on this promise."
"You crazy bastard, what the fu—"
Bam! As Veronica spat curses and reached for her sword, she was blasted far away with a boom.
I hadn't missed the Demon Cultist's movement. Indeed, the black-robed one stood motionless about ten meters from the students, where the rift had first appeared.
He had merely extended one palm rippling with black demonic qi.
Remote Palm Strike
Spatial palm strike via air medium – Target launched!
'Remote Palm Strike!'
A technique that struck across space. It had whipped the air as a medium to transmit the palm force, sending Veronica flying. It felt familiar, but right now, analysis could wait.
'Is Veronica okay?'
I urgently extended my senses toward her. Amid the shattered platform, life still pulsed from her body. She wasn't dead. In this situation where one wrong move could cost lives, that was a relief.
"Will you not yield her? Or... what is the Wind Moon Sect's young sect master doing? Do you intend to let everyone here die for the sake of one girl's safety?"
The black-robed Demon Cultist, the Third Apostle, spoke in a hissing whisper like a serpent.
And as her name was repeatedly invoked, several students' gazes naturally turned to Son Ha-rin.
Under the weight of those stares, Son Ha-rin slowly stepped forward.
Whether to fight or meekly surrender, I didn't know... but I grabbed her wrist.
Son Ha-rin turned to me with rare wide eyes. The Third Apostle shifted his gaze to me as well.
"Hm?"
"Haha, that'd be a problem. Thanks for the offer, senior... but..."
Despite the burdensome stares, I scratched the back of my head awkwardly and said,
"I've got some unfinished business with this girl."
"Business... more precious than life? I doubt it."
"Oh, come on. What could be more precious than life? However..."
She just owed me her life.
Life and life. No difference in meaning or value. What to choose was a matter of weighing the heart.
And right now, my heart refused to obey that bastard's command.
"Foolish bravado, then. No need to hear more. I'll handle the girl Son Ha-rin. Capture Baek Chan and Veronica Lionheart alive if possible... but if not, treat them the same as the rest."
Kill them all—that was what the Third Apostle meant as he swept back his robe with a hand. Perhaps judging it difficult to face sword experts with his vision obscured.
The next instant, seeing his revealed face, a torrent of emotions surged through me.
"You..."
It was him. The Demon Cultist who massacred my entire team, including John, on my final day in that life, half-shattering my dantian.
The middle-aged bald bastard who carried a Return Bead, ultimately losing his head to me.
He looked a dozen years younger, but it was unmistakably that face.
"Well, now."
A hollow laugh escaped my lips unbidden.
In a fight staking life to repay a life debt, to encounter the one who took my life before.
Was this a stroke of fateful coincidence? Or the inevitable end of my fate twisted by the Return Bead? Unknowable.
But one thing was certain.
I was a vagabond living on credit, a rivers-and-lakes man wagering life on grace and grudge, and a martial artist once called Lunatic Kim Hoon, like it or not.
Having defined myself with such words, I could not avoid this fight. Grace and grudge—two values more vital than life to a martial artist—were both at stake.
Yet for some reason... I didn't hate it. It even felt exhilarating.
The greatest crisis since regressing, yet my mood was buoyant.
I might be a corpse sprawled on the floor in five seconds, but if I survived today, I felt something heavy on my chest would lift substantially.
Thump. Thump. Thump. My heart raced. Brain dumping adrenaline sensing danger? Whatever, fine by me.
"You... what the hell? You crazy?"
Baek Chan said something beside me, but it didn't register.
I forced down the twitching grin and assumed stance.
"Kim Hoon of Yeager Orphanage. I learned the New Korean Bible and Czerny 100 from Director Kim Sung-tae."
I gave a self-introduction I never did, even adding a salute, reciting it dramatically.
Come to think of it, I'd hated these Satan-worshipping demons since childhood. Ever since getting scolded at ten for trying to cheat talents with coin flips, saying my head was full of "maguni."
Right after.
-[Instant Kill]
Hellfire incinerates heart and lungs – Demon Cultist skewered and embedded in wall!
Boooom!!!
"You moth—er—fuck—ers—!!!"
The Lionheart Family's signature madness and rage echoed thunderously through the building in a Lion Roar dripping with fury.
Veronica, who had been flung away earlier by the Third Apostle's Remote Palm Strike, gripped her greatsword in reverse grip and pulled her arm fully back.
Her stance resembled a spearman readying a javelin more than a swordsman. And the next moment—
Lion Heart Sword, Tenth Form: Hellfire
Greatsword launched like missile – Piercing flames consume vital organs!
A single greatsword tore straight through the air and shot forth.
With the momentum of a missile of the same name, it closed the distance in an instant, its tip piercing a Demon Cultist's chest dead center.
"Guh—"
Before a scream could escape, the flames imbued in the blade incinerated the heart and shriveled the lungs.
The crossguard extending from the hilt snagged on ribs, preventing clean passage, but the body flew some twenty meters before slamming into the training hall wall with the sword, embedded like a pinned insect.
The Demon Cultist's trembling hand soon went limp. Immense heat radiated from behind.
"You... filthy... bastards. I'll... kill... you... all—!!"
The British girl who spent her childhood in Hamgyong Province near Baekdu Mountain after fleeing to Korea spat dialect-laced curses, her blue eyes flashing.
Her shimmering hands conjured fist-gang shaped like brilliant yellow flames.
She'd completely lost it.
Well, a berserk Veronica on our side was reassuring.
"Let's do this."
I swung my sword at the oncoming wave of Demon Cultists.