Chapter 4
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Unbreakable
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I barely managed to move my lips amidst the heavy pressure of the qi wave compressing my entire body.
"Wh-what…!"
A killing intent that made my bones tingle and buzz. The savage qi wave's pressure squeezed my entire body.
Logically speaking, there was no reason for Baek Kang-mu to direct killing intent at me.
As far as I knew, he was far from the perfect psychopath chaebol chairman character straight out of a drama, and he wasn't the type to kill someone just because they beat up his son outside.
Besides, if he really intended to kill me, he could just casually reach out, place his hand on my head, and press down gently.
I didn't think an S-rank absolute expert who had undergone metamorphosis—the process of expelling all impurities from the meridians and reconstructing the body—would suffer from something as trivial as skin troubles, but he could probably kill me more easily than popping a pimple.
But with this suffocatingly dense qi wave right in front of me, no such logical judgment was possible.
The conclusion drawn by my instincts, ringing alarms like mad with all my strength, was far more irrational and simple.
'I'm gonna die!'
The moment the surging killing intent touched my skin, I reflexively drew the sword I'd placed on the limousine seat.
I hadn't intended to do it.
But the days spent as a vagabond, where my body had to react before my mind to survive, had been long, and that experience was etched into my entire body. Before I knew it, I had the blade pressed against Chairman Baek Kang-mu's throat.
To reiterate, that wasn't my intention.
Neither drawing the sword...
Nor stopping the swung sword.
-Kak... Kagagak...
"Good instincts. I apologize for comparing you to a dog. You're more like a tiger cub."
Baek Kang-mu muttered with a smirk.
Without even twitching a finger, he'd blocked my sword strike.
The blade had 'stopped' at his neck skin.
But there had been no deceleration in the reflexive slash I'd launched.
For an instant, my unconscious mind had dominated my body, swinging the sword at full power without the slightest hesitation to sever the throat of the source threatening my life.
Yet Chairman Baek Kang-mu's head remained intact atop his suit collar, which was worth more than all my clothes combined.
Instead, his unblemished neck skin was repelling my blade with blue sparks flying.
It was a grotesque sight, almost eerie.
I could only reel in shock inside my head.
'Not an Aura Shield. This is... external martial arts!'
External martial arts were a step removed from internal energy cultivation, focusing on tempering the body itself.
The term encompassed everything from lifting heavy weights to build strength to training like Iron Palm to harden the skin through constant stimulation, but this...
'The true realm of being impervious to blades.'
Known in the world as the martial artist of this era closest to Unbreakable.
S-rank, Manifestation Realm, absolute expert... many were the names, but it was certain they were existences that traditional weapons and amateur sword arts couldn't breach in the long history of the martial world.
Something that transcended even those classified as superhumans (Homo Transcendens). That was why, even in the 21st century where most mysteries could be explained by science, they still reigned as gods of the martial world.
I knew their kind could block a sword wrapped in internal energy with their bare bodies, but was this really the same species as me?
"I was skeptical watching the footage, but I was right after all. Well, they wouldn't have trained you to be so soft that immature Sword Qi could cut you. Even if he is my son."
Baek Kang-mu said as he pushed away the blade at his throat with two fingers, not even wrapped in an Aura Shield.
"My original question was about the nature of the strike that cut my son, but that curiosity has been satisfied. Let me rephrase the question a bit. For example."
The world's greatest practitioner of external martial arts, who had casually performed such a miracle, curled his lips into a wide grin and continued his question.
"Who taught you the Gang Qi Art, or something like that."
The chaebol chairman's eyes, resembling Baek Chan's, gleamed with interest.
Martial artists drew in natural energy through breathing techniques.
The natural qi (Æther), refined through these methods, was called internal energy or internal arts once inside the body.
This refined internal energy accumulated in the dantian, allowing martial artists to enhance their strength, speed, and more.
And when a martial artist reached a certain realm, they could manifest this internal energy outside the body in tangible form.
The so-called art of coating a sword with internal energy—Sword Qi—was one such example.
Of course, not all martial artists used swords, so coating a fist produced Fist Qi, a blade produced Blade Qi, and enveloping the whole body like armor produced a Protective Aura.
By coating with tangible internal energy, one could prevent weapon breakage and increase cutting and destructive power, so countless second-rate and below martial artists trained obsessively to manifest Sword Qi.
And Sword Qi had a second phase—the next stage.
Sword Qi compressed to high density, tangled intricately, fused, and bound together.
Unlike ordinary Sword Qi, which quickly lost form and collapsed without a medium like a fist, sword, or spear, this was so stable that the qi formed crystals. The light it emitted was likened by ancient martial artists to the stars of the Big Dipper and called Gang Qi.
It was in a completely superior-subordinate relationship with ordinary Sword Qi, like fire and magma.
While it overwhelmingly outperformed Sword Qi in performance, the internal energy consumption increased exponentially, so only those at the pinnacle of super-elite (B-rank) or above could manifest it briefly, and only upon reaching the Transformation Realm (A-rank) could it be used freely.
Of course, at seventeen, I wasn't anywhere near B-rank, let alone A-rank, but when my life was on the line, did that matter? I had to squeeze it out somehow.
"Pretty sharply honed... but too shallow. To cut me, you'd need at least one gapja more internal energy at the blade tip."
However, the desperate trump card my instincts had reflexively produced seemed no better than a mosquito bite to Chairman Baek Kang-mu. That much was clear from his nonchalant mutterings.
"Kuh..."
Before he even finished speaking, an overwhelming sense of exhaustion flooded me.
My vision spun, my breathing grew ragged, and my lower abdomen cramped. Classic symptoms of internal energy depletion. I'd burned through all my internal energy just maintaining Gang Qi for about two seconds.
Pathetically, this was my current level. I had no idea what basis I had at seventeen to think of myself as talented.
"But this is clearly beyond expectations. Among the new freshmen at Han Mu-yeong this year, I thought only about three, including my son, had even stepped into the realm of Sword Qi into Gang."
Chairman Baek held out the blade, now limp against his neck and devoid of its Gang glow, pinched between two fingers.
"And yet, there's one more."
"Hoo, heuk..."
I took the sword in my trembling hands and barely sheathed it.
"The Gang Qi Art is an ultimate technique among ultimate techniques, transmitted only to a select few even in great orthodox sects. Even I, in my youth, didn't learn a proper Gang Qi Art, so I put more effort into external arts."
He didn't learn proper Gang Qi Art? And yet he blocked my Sword Gang without lifting a finger?
It sounded like pure arrogance.
"Let me ask once more, little one."
Chairman Baek Kang-mu leaned forward and asked.
"Where did you learn the Gang Qi Art?"
His gaze pierced right through me.
I didn't know why he was pressuring me this way, but my instincts told me he'd see through any lie the moment I spoke it.
It was said that peerless experts who opened the upper dantian through the life-death gateway possessed supernatural abilities akin to the Six Supernatural Powers, far beyond ordinary humans, thanks to their transcendent brainpower.
That was why battle-ready peerless experts could predict their opponent's next move with near-prophetic accuracy.
Detecting lies through intuition would be child's play for such abilities. I'd heard highly developed upper dantians even enabled mind-reading.
Son Ha-rin answering a question I hadn't voiced aloud right before her death must have been due to the same principle.
So, I decided to tell the truth.
"I haven't learned it from anyone."
Interest flickered in Baek Kang-mu's eyes at my response.
"No master? Hard to believe—"
"If there was one."
I took a deep breath to steady myself and thought.
I'd tell the truth, but I needed to provide some plausibility for how a 'normal' seventeen-year-old high school freshman could use Gang Qi, a domain exclusive to martial experts.
Thinking about it, it felt unfair.
Damn old man, it was natural for his brilliant son to use Gang Qi, but suspicious when I did?
I straightened my back and sharpened my gaze.
I wasn't a genius, but I'd met plenty of them. Including the chairman's son right in front of me.
Recalling Baek Chan and my classmates from my past life, I mimicked their effortless arrogance and murmured lowly.
"The world itself, wouldn't you say?"