Chapter 22
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 22
Chapter Title: Superhero Landing
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He hurled himself into the storm of slashing swords and spears raining down like a hail of blades.
No matter how much he thought about it, it was insane. But it was something that had to be done.
"Take the lead, Baek Chan!!"
"Tch."
Naturally, the vanguard was Baek Chan, their party's main tank. But to break through this crowd, he couldn't just linger as a sub-tank pulling aggro.
He had to intercept and take down the demon cultists frantically wielding swords and daggers, trying to slip past Baek Chan's massive back—like a refrigerator—to target his flanks.
20m, 10m, 5m... Focusing more on advancing than fighting, he steadily closed the distance to Veronica.
And finally, the moment he reached her.
He channeled his internal energy into his vocal cords and shouted.
"Veronica!!"
Veronica, lost in a trance as she swung her sword, turned toward the voice calling her name.
Her face was drenched in blood.
Her golden hair was soaked through with it, hard to recognize its original color.
Everything was red.
'You idiot. Just kill her.'
For some reason, in that instant, the final image of the Blood Lion Demon Queen overlapped with her face.
In his memory, she had been slumped against the wall, bleeding from every part of her body, utterly spent.
What had she said in response to his question about her last words?
'Ha, anyway, no more... from that point on...'
Veronica swung her sword with an expressionless face. Toward him and Baek Chan.
Turning at the sound of her name was just an instinctive reaction. Her reason had long fled; she was merely unleashing the ingrained movements of bone and muscle like a machine, or a beast.
"That crazy bitch really—"
Baek Chan muttered a curse and raised his fist against the incoming blade, but in that moment, he accelerated his footwork and overtook him.
Tracking the charging sword with his eyes, he slowly raised his hand. His fingertips gently touched the flat of the greatsword. He pushed it aside. He twisted the direction of the surging torrent of power, bit by bit.
It was that signature minor technique. It had no name. Just a minor technique, literally.
'Hey, calling a minor technique by a name doesn't make it one. Is a divine art a divine art from the start? You give it a grand name, it comes to you, and becomes a divine art. Want me to name it? Hmm, how about this: Heaven and Earth...'
He ignored the memory of his old boss flashing through his mind. If slapping a divine art name on a minor technique made it one, why would he be suffering like this?
But it was true that this minor technique had always proven useful in critical moments.
When brushing aside a Demonic Cult apostle's defensive stance to strike the throat. When deflecting a giant's fist aiming to shatter his skull.
And also.
When gently pulling a girl's slightly deviating path... toward the right direction.
Boom!! The deflected blade slammed into the ground and embedded itself.
But the martial instincts dominating Veronica's mind didn't stop just because her sword was gone.
Lionheart Claw.
The Lionheart family's signature technique. A killing move that cauterized wounds with the heat infused in its slashes, preventing even recovery through martial arts.
In his previous life, he'd chased Veronica for three whole months and experienced it on his body.
So... there was no reason he couldn't mimic it.
He thrust out his right hand in the exact same form toward Veronica's flame-wreathed hand.
The moment their hands mirrored each other, he seized hers. He locked fingers, sealing her technique.
Her nails dug into the back of his hand like a real lion's claws, but he didn't let go.
Instead, he raised their interlocked hands high to block any close-range elbow strikes.
Naturally, their distance closed until he could feel her breath. He met her eyes again, closer than before.
Her gaze was hazy, but those jewel-like blue pupils were different from the Blood Lion Demon Queen's crimson eyes.
Then it was fine.
He gave a small smile and yanked the greatsword from the floor with his free hand, tossing it to Baek Chan.
"Even a fist fighter like you knows how to use a sword, right? That greatsword looks like a plain three-foot blade in your hands!"
"Keep yapping and I'll leave you behind."
That wouldn't do.
He scooped up the growling Veronica, who had lost human speech, and dashed after Baek Chan.
Baek Chan swung the six-foot greatsword like a wooden stick, smashing through the wall of demon cultists.
"Ugh... Uh...!?"
Having let go of her sword, Veronica's mind seemed to be clearing bit by bit.
Memories from her trance state weren't entirely gone; even finding herself in his arms after snapping out of it, she didn't slap him for groping or anything. She was surprisingly docile.
Even without reason, she must have felt sorry for attacking him; her head hung low. Her ears, peeking through her hair still hot from the fervor, were red.
'Back to your senses? Feeling okay?'
"You look so pretty when you shut up."
Slap!
Nope, cancel that. He'd only been worried, and this was his reward...
Even in her mindless state, she wouldn't have mixed up his inner thoughts and spoken words like that.
He flung Veronica into the center of the formation and leaped over the students' heads into the inner area.
More wounded inside the formation than before he and Baek Chan had broken out for the "Lionheart Private Rescue" op. Now, the uninjured were the minority.
He grabbed Veronica's shoulder and said,
"Sorry to say this right after you snap out of it, but I think you'll need to fight a bit."
"...I'd do it even if you didn't ask. Give me my sword, idiot."
"Here."
Veronica brushed off the chipped sword and turned her head.
"Son Ha-rin..."
"Still dodging around fine. Her internal energy's draining over time... but she's faster than at the start. Looks like she got the hang of aerial combat."
Boom boom boom boom!
The Third Apostle and Son Ha-rin were still clashing midair, firing swords, palm winds, in a monster battle. They couldn't just sit back munching popcorn.
Veronica raised her sword. Flames flickered at its tip once more.
"Don't push yourself. If you go wild, it'll mess up the others."
"Tch. I know."
Veronica gruffly replied and headed to the south gate of the formation, guarded by Yongwon, the novice monk from Bulguksa Temple.
The group battle, clearly tilting against them, barely reached a stalemate with Veronica's joining.
As everyone fought on with exhausted bodies, just slashing and striking repeatedly.
Thud—!
A massive vibration shook the gymnasium.
The demon cultists pounding the formation naturally faltered.
Thud—!
The Third Apostle, mid-pressure on Son Ha-rin, turned his head and muttered,
"Hm? This aura... No way, the Sword Demon...!"
Kaboom!!
Deafening explosions accompanied concrete chunks and dust flying into the training hall.
A hole the size of a person had been punched through one wall of the training hall building.
The figure who had smashed through the outer wall and its barrier parted the dust curtain and strode in.
Seeing that face, the Third Apostle howled in rage.
"You lost to a mere whelp not even thirty, Sword Demon—!!!"
At the same time, relief and joy spread across the students' faces.
An A-rank supreme master, the Phoenix of Fist Lee Soo-young, had arrived.
"You, Demonic Cult rabble."
Amid dozens of gazes fixed on her, Lee Soo-young's lips moved.
Unlike her usual cold charisma befitting a military background... her voice carried fury rivaling the Third Apostle's.
"Even if the Terror Demon Emperor himself came instead of trash like you."
She raised her clenched fists and spat,
"You can't touch my school or my students."
Die— Lee Soo-young's Six Harmonies Voice Projection reverberated through the hall.
And as if it were a true incantation from the Mosan sorcerers, possessing some spell-like power.
Splat!
Sparks crackled through the air like lightning, and one demon cultist's head exploded into pieces.
The headless body toppled unsteadily. No blood stained Lee Soo-young's fist that had crushed the skull.
A Peak Realm martial artist's full-power short-distance footwork had broken the sound barrier. The sparks left in the air were from her Aura Shield's friction with the atmosphere generating heat.
Thud! Another dull burst echoed without giving time to think.
"Wha... what...?"
A demon cultist, half his upper body bluntly torn off like mauled by an invisible monster, staggered back a few steps before collapsing.
"Arghhh!"
Another demon cultist's desperate sword swing cleaved only Lee Soo-young's afterimage. It was Phantom Shift. With that, the cultist with a massive hole in his gut fell.
Thud! Thud! Crunch! Every time colorful sparks burst in the air, a demon cultist died gruesomely.
"Where?!"
"Urghaaah...!"
Even the demonic arts scrambling their brains to erase pain and fear couldn't suppress the instinctive terror spreading through the crowd.
Like beasts pressing their heads to the ground amid a stormy night, the demon cultists could only pray to the Heavenly Demon that the strikes falling like divine thunderbolts spared their heads.
"You useless scum...! You dare tarnish the Divine Cult? Go! Don't grovel to live—rise and die!"
The bellowing Third Apostle halted his palm strikes on Son Ha-rin—who had fully mastered sword flight and was freely swimming through the air—and snapped his fingers.
Demonic energy twisted into a bizarre shape at his fingertip.
Mudra? No... a magic circle?
Well, he'd never seemed like a standard fighter using Remote Palm Strikes. He mixed sorcery into his martial arts.
And from the demon cultists suddenly convulsing and howling, it was probably some restraint or curse interfering with minds.
Not just those near Lee Soo-young, but even ones clinging to the students' formation—all turned and charged her at once.
"Heavenly Demon Reincarnate, Demon Emperor Returns, Divine Cult Invincible, Demonic Path Rules All!"
"Heavenly Demon Reincarnate, Demon Emperor Returns, Divine Cult Invincible, Demonic Path Rules All!"
The fanatics drooled and chanted in tongues as they rushed in. Some even discarded their swords and charged barehanded.
"Teacher!"
He shouted urgently.
This wasn't a standard Joint Attack Formation. Like bees forming a ball to cook a hornet with body heat, countless demon cultists were throwing themselves at Lee Soo-young, aiming to smother her with sheer mass, lives be damned.
Lee Soo-young's martial prowess outclassed them all combined, but if her movements were sealed enough to prevent techniques, there was nothing for it.
Yet Lee Soo-young stood motionless even as dozens of cultists swarmed like a giant wave, engulfing her form completely in an instant.
He grabbed Veronica, who was finishing off a fallen cultist, and yelled,
"Veronica! Can you do that Hellfire sword-throw again? We need to shave down that clump somehow."
"No way I can throw it without knowing exactly where Teacher is inside!"
Was he just supposed to watch, then? He bit his lip.
[Chungmu Divine Art]
In that instant, a faint voice echoed.
It was a sound that bypassed the eardrums, seeping directly into his mind.
The intense intent from a high master with opened upper dantian. Son Ha-rin and the Third Apostle, who had pierced the Life-Death Gateway, must have heard it far more clearly.
And it was clearly... the name of a martial art. The divine art left by the greatest master ever praised in this peninsula's history.
[Turtle Ship Divine Armor]
Kraka ka boom!!
Hundreds of spikes erupted from Lee Soo-young's Aura Shield, which enveloped her body like iron armor.